


Ghosted

by unluckyrose



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: au where Five dies, immediately kills off my favorite character, oh boy i'm gonna start writing tua fanfic, the first chapter might be a bit of a mess but i have a plot i promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-01-12 04:32:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18439106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unluckyrose/pseuds/unluckyrose
Summary: "Does anyone else see... little Number Five, or is that just me?"No one else does see Number Five.Just Klaus.





	1. Whoops

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever have an idea for a fic and you have to write the first bit and post it immediately while you're very sleep deprived?

“Does anyone else see… little Number Five, or is that just me?” Klaus asked. 

Strangely, Diego and Luther ignored him (or not that strangely. He was used to them just ignoring him, but this was kind of important), both stepping forward as soon as the strange blue light and rumbling thunder had faded. “It's just gone,” Luther said, staring up at where the wormhole-thing had been.

“What the hell was it?” Diego asked. He stepped right past Five.

Allison reached out a hand after Luther as he walked towards center of the yard. “Is it really gone? You shouldn't stand there, it might open up again,” she warned.

“It's just gone,” Luther repeated, waving his arms to indicate all of the nothing in the sky. “Nothing happened.”

Diego shook his head. “That doesn't make any sense.”

“Well what do you want me to tell you? You’re seeing this too, nothing happened.”

“Did nobody hear me?” Klaus asked, bewildered. He stepped forward slowly, towards the small form on the ground. Number Five was laying on his back, a hand on his forehead and looking disheveled, but undoubtedly the brother that had vanished 16 years ago. “It's Number Five.”

Vanya stepped forward too, ignoring Allison's hand shooting out to stop her. “Wait, what about Number Five?” 

“He's-” Klaus started, but cut himself off. Five had sat up. He was looking around at everyone in the yard, eyes flicking between each of his siblings. Diego and Luther were standing right beside him, not acknowledging him at all as they scanned the area for any change. Allison was staring up at the sky where the wormhole had just closed, as if it would suddenly appear again. Vanya was staring at Klaus, less than a few feet from where Five lay. Klaus was the only one looking directly at him. No one else _did_ see him.

“ _ Shit _ ,” Five breathed.

“Shit,” Klaus echoed.

“Klaus, what did you say about Five?” Vanya asked again. Her eyes bore into him.

“Five?” Luther asked, seemingly only now hearing the exchange. “What does this have to do with Five?

“The blue did kind of look like his power?” Diego suggested, “But what are you talking about, Klaus?”

“Fuck,” Five said, pushing himself to his feet. Klaus watched as he regained his balance. He was wearing an oversized gray suit for some reason, and it hung off his frame as he moved. His eyes were wide and he looked panicked. Of fucking course he did. “Fuck, you guys can't see me,”

“I can,” Klaus said automatically.

“You can what?” Vanya asked, confused and frowning.

Allison frowned too. “Did you just bring up Five for no reason?”

“Klaus, go inside if you're not going to help,” Diego snapped.

Klaus scoffed, “Help? Help what, your mission to stand around and stare at the sky?” He didn't look at Diego while he spoke, keeping his eyes on Five. He had moved so he was standing directly in front of Vanya, who wasn't looking at him. She was staring at Klaus, because he still hadn’t answered her.

“Are you still high?” Luther asked.

He glanced up at Luther for a second. “Well yeah, but-” Klaus stopped himself. Five was gone now. Had he teleported or faded? “You know what? You have a point, you guys go on with your staring at nothing, I'm gonna go hang out inside.” With that, he swept away. No one followed him, but he heard some mutters behind him about ‘acting weird’ and ‘being Klaus’.

That was weird as hell. Was it just a hallucination or something? No, the others had seen the weird blue light, at least. But he was the only one who'd seen Number Five appear from it. 

Yeah, he had no idea how he could have expected his siblings to believe him about that. It was too random. They didn't even really believe that he could see Ben, though he'd never tried too hard to explain that. And right now, he really didn’t want to break the news that Five was dead. Maybe he  _ had _ imagined it. Maybe he’d been so focused on trying to see Dad that he’d hallucinated someone else he’d always tried to see. He was too high to talk with ghosts right now anyway. Except, it hadn’t ever mattered how high he was when it came to Ben. 

Speaking of Ben, he appeared beside him as he strode through the house. “What was that?” he asked, walking beside him. “You could've told them.”

Fuck. So Ben had seen him too. “Great of you to join me, Benny boy, you've been quiet today,” Klaus said.

“Well sorry, funerals aren't exactly my favorite places for chats,”

“Mine either! Let's get out of here, it looks like our wonderful family is already done with my presence, so-”

Ben stopped, and Klaus automatically stopped as well, even though Ben didn't actually need to move to keep up with him. He had that ‘I’m very disappointed in you, Klaus’ face on. “That's it? You're not going to check on him?”

“You know, I was only like 20% sure I didn't just imagine all that. Maybe you imagined it too?” he asked, hopefully.

Ben raised an eyebrow doubtfully. “He was  _ there _ , Klaus. I saw him too. I was just too…”

“What, shocked to say anything? Because it's so impossible? I agree.”

“You can't just run off and pretend that didn't happen,”

“Oh, but I really want to,” Klaus pouted. He was lying, he wanted answers and to talk to his missing brother, but how was he even supposed to process this? It would be so much easier if he had just imagined it. If he didn’t have to confront this right now. He ran a hand over his face. “If he’s dead, why couldn’t I ever see him before?”

“We’ll just have to ask him.”

“Where’d he even go?”

“Check his room?” Ben suggested. 

“Great. Chasing after ghosts is my favorite thing to do.” 

“You have to find him and talk to him, he’s probably terrified,” Ben was glaring at him. He was right. Their brother was dead and alone and something had happened. 

\--

 

Klaus didn't end up finding him after about an hour of wandering around the mansion. He was in the kitchen, throwing open cabinets and finding nothing but dusty mugs and plates inside.

“Why would he be in the cabinet?” Ben rolled his eyes. He was across the room, checking under a table.

“Do you have any better ideas? He wasn’t in his room, or the sitting room, or the training rooms, or anyone else’s bedroom,” Klaus counted each location on his fingers. 

Ben straightened up and ran a hand through his own hair. “Can't you just… make him manifest again?” 

“I didn't make him manifest the first time! He just showed up!” Klaus hissed. Luckily, Luther appeared in the entrance to the kitchen just a second too late to hear this exchange.

“Good, you're still here. We're spreading the ashes in the courtyard, come on,” he explained, holding up the urn in his arms.

“Isn't it raining?” Klaus sighed, but Luther was already gone. Klaus had an umbrella somewhere, probably. He couldn't exactly skip out, Luther would come drag him to the courtyard if he didn't show up. His hunt for Number Five's ghost would have to wait.

Except, when he stepped out into the courtyard, clutching a pink umbrella and holding a pack of  cigarettes, he saw exactly who he was looking for. The whole family was filing outside, including Five, though he was standing a little further away from the others and had no umbrella. He looked perfectly dry and no one else was acknowledging him. Klaus paused to look at him, as did Ben, but the thirteen year old ignoring them. His eyes were fixed on Luther, who walked at the front of the group, stopping in a specific spot. While the leader waited to scatter the ashes, Klaus walked over to stand beside Five.

“Did something happen?” Mom asked, cheerfully. 

Allison frowned. “Dad died. Remember?”

“Oh. Yes, of course,” Mom seemed a little dazed and confused. Fucking same, Mom.

“Is mom okay?” Allison asked, directing the question to Diego.

“Yeah, yeah, she’s fine. She just needs to rest, you know, recharge.”

Klaus pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “We’re all a bit confused today, huh?” He whispered. Five glanced at him, but didn’t reply.

Pogo looked up at Luther. “Whenever you’re ready, dear boy.” They all watched as Luther took the top off the urn and slowly poured the ashes out onto the ground. They fell into a small pile. Klaus winced.

“...Probably would’ve been better with some wind,” Luther said, awkwardly. 

“Could’ve waited until the rain stopped,” Ben commented, standing on the other side of Five. Klaus side-eyed the boy, but Five was adamantly ignoring them and watching the funeral. He looked so small in that weirdly large suit. Why was he wearing that and not the uniform he’d disappeared in? He must’ve died sometime after that. Not long after that, though, because he didn’t look a day over thirteen. Child ghosts were easier to deal with than adult ones. They’re so much less angry. 

But no part of this would be easy, because this was his brother, and Klaus had so many questions.

He had to pay attention to the land of the living again when he heard arguing. Oh, Diego and Luther were throwing punches. No one was surprised. He stepped back, holding out an arm to make Five and Ben move out of the line of fire on instinct, but his arm went through both ghosts. Five finally looked at him, or at least at said arm. He looked very pale. Klaus retracted his arm immediately. Five glanced up at him, made eye contact for just a second, then vanished again.

There was a crack and a thud. “Aw,” Klaus sighed, seeing the remains of Ben’s statue cracked on the ground.

“There goes Ben’s statue,” Allison rolled her eyes.

“Where did Five go?” Ben asked, ignoring the drama, and his own monument on the ground.

“I don’t know, inside?” Klaus glanced at the door. 

“Good idea,” Allison said, clearly mishearing him and thinking he’d suggested leaving. She turned and disappeared back into the mansion. Klaus didn’t wait too long to follow her. As tempting as it was to watch the rest of the drama play out, he had drama of his own to deal with.

\--

 

“There you are,” Klaus flopped into a chair at the kitchen table. Five was standing at the counter, staring into space, but turned to face him when he entered. “You ready to talk about the elephant in the room, or are you just gonna keep pulling a disappearing act?”

“I thought you’d be more willing to let a ghost ignore you,” Five crossed his arms. He still looked horribly pale, even for a ghost. There was a shaky fear in his eyes that made Klaus's heart hurt.

“How I wish I could, little bro, but dear old Benny just wouldn’t let me rest.” He waved a hand in the direction of Ben, who sat on the table. He was looking at Five like he was a scared animal.

“Hey, Five,” Ben said, finally. "It's good to see you."

Five nodded at him. His face almost broke into a smile. “Hi, Ben. And Klaus. It’s been awhile.”

“Sixteen years, almost seventeen” Ben said.

“It's been a looot longer than that.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “What’s the date? The exact date?”

“Uh,” Klaus had a terrible concept of time. 

Luckily, Ben answered. “24th of March, 2019.”

“Fuck,” Five tried to slam his fist on the counter, but his hand went through it. “Dammit!”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Klaus sat up straight, reaching out a hand towards Five, even though he was standing out of arm’s reach. “You good, man?”

“I am ‘good’, Klaus." Five snapped, voice dripping with sarcasm. "I’m fucking wonderful. I’m dead. Do you see a lot of dead people who are good?”

“I mean, Ben’s pretty good,”

Ben stood up and walked around the table to Five’s other side. “You wanna, tell us what happened?” he asked, gently, “You’ve been gone for a long time, Five.”

Five waved a hand in dismissal. “I don’t need your coddling. I’m not actually a kid, or your _ little bro _ . Right now I could really do with a drink or some coffee, but it turns out the dead can’t drink!”

“Hold on, hold up, what do you mean you’re not a kid?” Klaus scooched his chair closer to Five. “Also, while we’re at it, uh, why are you here now? Not that I’m not happy to see you, but, like, what the hell?”

Five sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “It’s… a long story. I was in the future. For 45 years, about. I tried to jump back here, and I guess the equations  _ were _ wrong.”

“You’re 58?” Ben asked, disbelievingly. “Then why are you…”

“ _ I just said _ , the equations were wrong. And now I’m dead.” Five pulled away from Klaus and Ben, walking over to the window and looking out to the sky. “I got to the right time, but I screwed it up. It’s hopeless. All those decades of planning and trying to get back here, and I _ died _ .”

Klaus exchanged a look with Ben. “Dad did say time travel could mess with the mind?” Ben suggested quietly. “Death can mess with the mind, for sure. I don’t know if he’s… okay?”

Five groaned, showing that he’d heard. “Hey, hey, Five, listen,” Klaus stood up and walked over to where Five was standing. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, but you’re here! You were gone for a long time, but you’re here! With your two best brothers! You’re okay now, or, I guess not really, but we can figure out what’s going on. Let us help you, little man.”

“You can’t help,” Five snapped, turning to face him. “No one can. It’s over. I fucked it up, and now everyone’s going to die.” He turned away again, quickly. “I should just go find a movie to watch and wait for the end.”

And then he was gone again.

“Dammit.”

Klaus clapped his hands once. "Well, is that the end of our brotherly obligation?"

Ben's eyes were shining, as if he was trying not to cry. Yeah, okay, same. Time to comfort another brother through own death.


	2. Comfort Food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> klaus tries to be a good brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the comments on the first chapter everyone <3

Five sat on the bed in his childhood room, trying to clutch at the blankets but his hands went right through them. It was calm and quiet, but he could hear the distant movement of the others moving around in the house. It would reassuring if he didn't know they'd be dead in a little over a week anyway.

He wasn’t sure what he was doing here. after everything he'd been through, he didn't even get the luxury of moving on? No, turns out he had to hang around, invisible, and watch his siblings die because of his failure.

In terms of what he was doing here, specifically in the mansion, he had tried to leave already. After watching his siblings (try to) scatter the ashes in the courtyard, he'd tried to go out and wander the town. Just because he was dead didn't mean he had to hang around and watch the bickering, or so he thought.  As soon as his foot crossed the sidewalk outside, a strange and unpleasant tingling feeling took over his whole… well, not body, since he didn't have that anymore. It didn't feel like his atoms ripping apart, like what happened when he’d jumped to this time. Dying in between two places in time. That had been the most painful thing he’d ever experienced.  No, the feeling that tingled through his fingers when he tried to leave the mansion was more like a soft feeling of going numb, fading.

He probably couldn’t go far from Klaus.

He put his head in his hands. He’d had some time to process all of this, since he’d realized he must be dead. It had been a few hours since his death, and really all he could do was wander around and try to process it beyond the initial panic. He knew something had gone horribly wrong immediately. Not because of the horrible pain and feel of being ripped to shreds, but because of the absolute lack of feeling afterwards. Distantly, he'd realized that he was indeed in another place and time, that he could hear people talking, and that he was laying in grass, but his senses were all _off_. Like he was there, but just not enough. Time travel could be painful as hell, but it never left him so numb afterwards. In fact, he normally felt sore and nauseated, but he couldn't even feel that.

And then he’d sat up, and his adult siblings were there, but they were staring right through him. They looked exactly as they had when he’d found their bodies, all those decades ago. And he'd seen Klaus, the only one looking him. And his heart had dropped.

After everything he'd done, he'd died just when stopping the apocalypse was finally in his grasp. He'd been so close. Now he couldn't even talk to his siblings, let alone explain. He couldn't find and kill whoever would be responsible for the apocalypse  He couldn't even hold a gun. He was basically still alone, but without the benefit of actually being alone, because now he had to sit around and be invisible to everyone.

Well, aside from Ben, who it turns out was also hanging around in spirit form. According to Vanya’s book, Ben had died back when they were 17 years old. At least he got to see him one more time.

He could talk to Klaus too, he supposed. It wasn't like he could be much use. He'd never been too happy with ghosts and tried his best to ignore them, especially if they had some sort of goal or obsession. He'd started sneaking out at night and getting drunk before Five left, and from what he'd read in Vanya's book, it had only gotten worse from there.

Speaking of Klaus.

There was a knock on his door. “Five? You in there?” Klaus’s voice drifted through.

“Don’t you have something better to do?” Five sighed. For someone who tried so hard to avoid ghosts, he sure wasn't letting him give up in peace.

“Come on, Five. Let us help. You’re our brother!”

“Help?” Five teleported to just outside his door. Klaus jumped a bit and yelped at his sudden appearance. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Klaus, but I'm a bit beyond help.”

Klaus pretended to smooth out his skirt. “We can talk it out! Good ol’ brother therapy sesh. Tell us what's on your mind, explain what happened, and then we can all go out for comfort food. I'm the only one who could eat it, but I think the thought counts.” Ben nodded, and Five wasn't sure if he was agreeing to the food or urging him to agree to the talk.

Five crossed his arms. “You want me to spill all my emotions to you like you're a therapist? No offense, but if I needed help with my emotional health, I wouldn't go to you.”

“That's honestly fair,” Klaus admitted. Five turned to walk back into his room, but Klaus waved his hands at him in a 'stop’ motion. “Wait wait wait a second there, so you're not in the mood for a chat, we can still hang out a bit! Comfort food is always on the table, or we could see a movie, or go for a walk.”

Ben stepped closer to Five. “Don't just sulk in your room, Five. You've been gone a long time, we just don't want you to be alone.” He looked so calm and reassuring, like Five was going to break if he walked towards him too fast. It was very Ben of him, and in fact Five guessed the only reason Klaus was bothering to do this was because Ben insisted, but his concern just made Five feel worse because it was _pointless_. He didn't need comfort, and he didn't need to be treated like the traumatized and insane souls of the dead. What was the point when everything was going to be gone so soon anyway?

So he voiced that. “I don't need to be treated like a scared child, Ben. I don't need comfort food or stupid distractions. Unless you can figure out how to stop the apocalypse without being able to interact with anything, then you can't help me. I'd rather not spend my last days of existence chasing you two around.”

There was a second of silence after he finished speaking. Ben tried to exchange a glance with Klaus, but Klaus wasn't looking at him. He leaned against the wall and raised his eyebrows at Five.

“What was that about the apocalypse, little buddy?”

“The world's ending in just over a week,” Five ran a hand down his face and sighed. “Get your affairs in order, I suppose.”

“That's a hell of a thing to drop on us,” Klaus reached into his jacket and pulled out the pack of cigarettes from earlier. Looked like he was taking advantage of Dad not being around to forbid him smoking in the house. “How do you know?”

“I saw it, when I time travelled. I went too far into the future, and I couldn't get back. I lived it. And now it's going to happen, because I'm not alive to stop it.”

Ben was still looking at him with pity. Of course he was. Klaus looked more curious. “And your plan was to stop it?”

Five gestured vaguely to the everything around him. “That's why I came back. That plan was derailed by my painful death.”

Klaus pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “I mean, if that doesn't sound like a reason for comfort food then what does?”

Five sighed heavily and wished he was corporeal so he could bang his head against a wall. “If I go out to get food with you, will you shut up and let me give up in peace?”

Klaus clapped. “That sounds like a deal! Come on, gang, I think Diego's still downstairs.”

 --

 

“What is he doing?” Five asked, squinting out into the dark. Diego was standing beside the water, seemingly staring out at nothing.

“I don't know, brooding?” Klaus waved a hand dismissively. “What should we get to eat? I'm thinking..  eggs?”

Five turned back around to face Klaus. He was sitting in the passenger seat, since he refused to be squished between Ben and Klaus in the backseat. “It would be faster to walk.”

“Maybe for you, with your young bones and teleportation, but I for one am not walking anywhere I don't have to,” Klaus leaned further down in his seat, making a point. “Nah, it's too late for eggs. How do you feel about pancakes?”

“I feel like I really wish I could drink coffee,” Five sighed.

“Oh! Coffee, Griddy's isn't too far from here, you remember that place?”

“Doughnuts aren't dinner,” Ben interjected.

Klaus waved him off. “They probably serve something else. Besides, we'd be going for nostalgia. Poor Five here is recently dead and needs good brother bonding time,”

Five huffed in amusement. “Don't use my tragic death as an excuse to eat junk food.”

Klaus crossed his arms. “No one in this car cares about my happiness!”

Before the ridiculous argument could continue, Diego was opening the car door again and sliding into his seat. Klaus sat up in his seat.

“Diego! Great of you to join us. We have decided on doughnuts, we're going to Griddy's! Just like old times.”

“I'll drop you off there, I have something to check out.” Diego adjusted the rearview mirror while he spoke.

“What, there's something to check out that's more important than doughnuts?” Klaus pouted.

“Yes.” Diego answered, without hesitation.

Five watched as he turned to check his blindspot before pulling the car out. His eyes went right over the passenger seat where Five sat, and then kept going. He didn't pause or react in any way. It was unsettling, to be so completely invisible. He'd been good at the stealth part of his job; it's a great skill for an assassin to not be seen or recognized, but this felt so wrong. The tiny spark of an okay mood he'd been building up died down, and he sat silently as Diego drove them to Griddy's.

He also stayed silent as Diego dropped them off unceremoniously and Klaus nearly skipped into the doughnut shop. Five sat himself at a table in the corner, so he could look over the mostly empty doughnut shop. The fluorescent lights blinked harshly against the dark windows and he shielded his eyes from them with a hand, despite not technically having nerves so they couldn't actually make his eyes hurt. Klaus was leaning against the counter, tapping some unknown rhythm with his knuckles and talking cheerfully to Ben. The shop was empty aside from them, there wasn't even anyone at the counter at the moment. Klaus seemed too involved in talking to Ben just outside of Five's hearing to bother ringing the bell for service.

Luckily, a waitress did appear a few minutes later, probably hearing Klaus talking to himself in an empty building. Five watched her frown, glance around the deserted room, then shake her head and get Klaus’ attention.

Five’s head turned at the sound of the door opening. It was just some unassuming guy entering the doughnut shop, the only other guy out this late and craving doughnuts. He sat in a stool at the far end of the counter from where Klaus was, and nodded at the waitress when she held up a hand to say ‘be with you in a minute’. The random man adjusted his vest and leaned against the counter while he waited. Five saw the logo of a tow truck company on his shirt.

Klaus finished his order, pushing away from the counter and sweeping across the room to the table where Five sat. Ben trailed after him and slipped into the chair beside Five. “You’re wasting money,” Ben accused Klaus.

“It’s a celebration!” Klaus defended, flopping down into the seat across the table.

Five leaned his elbow against the table. “Of what, my death?” he asked, only half paying attention. Despite the fact dragging him out here was supposed to be some way to cheer him up or whatever these two thought they were doing, his mind was still swimming with the dread and failed plans that he’d been obsessing over all night. There just wasn’t a good way to salvage the situation. He couldn’t touch a pencil or paper to make calculations or a probability chart, and even if he did know who to kill the only person he could talk to was Klaus, who wasn’t exactly a trained hitman. The eye could still be a lead, but it would be with his body and he didn’t even know where his body was. Scattered between times, it seemed. The eye had been in his pocket, but it didn’t seem like anything was in his pockets now. He didn’t know if that was because he’d lost it before he died or if it had something to do with lack of detail in his spiritual form. If only Dolores was around to bounce ideas off of.

“No, of Dad’s death,” Klaus said, and Five had to mentally backtrack to remember what he was even replying to. “In a way, the old man is paying for our treat.” Klaus slapped a handful of cash on the table.

Ben looked at the cash, then at Klaus, then sighed. “Really?”

“He wasn’t using it,” he defended, stuffing the money back into his coat. “Also, consider this; Dad sucked, and I needed money.”

“He makes a compelling argument,” Five said, mock seriously. Ben smirked and rolled his eyes. He said something about that ‘not being the point’ and ‘at least it’s not drugs’, but Five tuned the conversation out again. The silver lining of his body being destroyed was that the tracker in his arm probably wasn’t here, so the Commission couldn’t come after him. They would obviously know he’d bailed on the JFK job, but they wouldn’t be able to figure out where he’d gone. Then again, that wasn’t much of a silver lining. They couldn’t kill him because he was already dead, hooray. Without being able to interact with physical objects he couldn’t read books, but he could perhaps watch the news, if Klaus left the tv on for him. Maybe he could set up multiple televisions and at least keep an eye on the situation? But if he saw something he just came back around to not being able to stop it.

He hated being helpless.

He bunched his fists up in his too-big suit, mentally wishing he had at least died in clothes that fit. Of course he had to accidentally revert to his 13-year-old body _and then_ die. Every part of this situation had to be horrible.

Five looked up when Klaus rapped his knuckles on the table to get his attention. “Whatcha thinking about, shortstack?”

“Call me that again and I will find some way to stab you with a dull knife.”

Klaus held his hands up in surrender. “Aggressive! I just asked a question, you looked pretty lost there.”

He rubbed his temples and wondered if he could get a spiritual headache. “You said no therapy.”

“I don’t think I ever said that.” Klaus adopted something that looked almost like a serious expression. “Seriously though, what’s up, man? There’s no sadness allowed in Griddy’s.”

Five gritted his teeth. “Well, for one, there’s the apocalypse, which I already told you about, followed up by the small fact that I’m dead. Those are two tiny issues I’m dealing with right now.”

Klaus opened his mouth to reply, and Ben turned to him and frowned, but before either of them could say anything, the waitress from the counter appeared with a large platter of pastries, a pot of coffee balanced in her elbow, and three mugs hooked on her fingers.

“Here’s your order, sir,” she said, giving Klaus a friendly smile. She carefully set the platter on the table in front of him, then placed all three mugs down. With a quick glance at Klaus, as if asking ‘are you sure?’, she filled all three mugs with coffee. “Enjoy!” And she hustled off back behind the counter, where the tow truck guy was sitting and enjoying his dessert.

Klaus pushed the platter so it was in the middle of the table, then passed the two extra mugs to Five and Ben. Neither ghost moved to touch the food, knowing they couldn’t. “Why did you bother getting enough for three of us?” Five asked.

“Two reasons,” Klaus explained, through a mouthful of jelly doughnut. The platter in the center of the table was stacked with what looked like at least one of every type of doughnut in the shop. “One, like I said, Dad’s paying. What better way to say ‘fuck you’ than doughnuts? And two, I’m not going to be the weirdo eating doughnuts alone at night.”

“You’re still eating doughnuts alone at night,” Ben pointed out.

“And it’s the thought that counts! Like I said before!” Crumbs of doughnut sprayed across the table and Five glared at them, as if he could command them to brush themselves away. “Ungrateful! I’m just trying to help.”

The tow truck guy had finished his food and was standing. Five held up a hand to stop the conversation, a thought hitting him. “Klaus, you want to help me?”

“What do you think I’ve been doing all day?”

“I need an address. That guy’s a tow truck driver, can you ask him for me?”

“That’s it?” Klaus raised an eyebrow, but pushed away from the table and stood up anyway. “Okay, what do you need?”

Five told him about the department store he’d found Dolores in, and Klaus ran off to catch up with the tow truck guy. He only caught up with him once he was in the doorway, and Five watched as the stranger tensed and regarded Klaus with suspicion. Which was probably understandable, considering he’d just watched the man have a conversation with himself in a donut shop for the past half an hour. However, he nodded and scribbled something down on a piece of paper, before handing it to Klaus and leaving.

Klaus sat back down and slapped the piece of paper down on the table. “Who’s the world’s best brother?”

“I don’t know but he’s probably none of mine,” Five answered automatically.

Ben laughed and Klaus placed a hand over his heart, offended. “You’re not getting this address until you learn to be nice to me,” he said, slipping the paper into his coat. Five hoped he didn’t lose that, he didn’t really need to go there this moment but it was nice to know where Dolores was. Anyway, the point of this exercise was to demonstrate the epiphany he’d had.

“Stopping the apocalypse might not be hopeless after all,” he said, thoughtfully.

“Oh? Do tell.”

“I don’t know what exactly causes the apocalypse. You could follow leads for me,” Five explained, “Be my mouthpiece so I can at least get an idea of what’s going to happen, even if I can’t stop it.” He didn’t have high hopes, but he had to work with what he had. “I’ll also need to test what I can do as a ghost, how far away I can get from Klaus and things like that.”

Surprisingly, Klaus frowned a little at this. Ben’s reaction was more what he expected. “Yeah! See, Five, we can help. Whatever you need.”

“Speaking of help,” Five continued, not giving himself time to second guess this decision, “we should tell Vanya.”

“Vanya? Why?” Klaus asked, bewildered.

“She’s most likely to listen, and we could use extra help on this.”

Klaus deflated a bit more. Ben didn’t seem to notice; he was already standing as if he was going to go stop the apocalypse this minute. “Where do we start?” he asked.

“You know, why don’t you two start with your ghost nonsense first?” Klaus suggested, standing from the table again. “I’m going out, Ben can teach you all the fun things about being ghost.”

“There aren’t any,” Ben said.

“Do you have something better to do?” Five asked.

“Oh, yeah, plenty,” Klaus shrugged and tossed some money on the table next to the mostly uneaten donuts. “We can talk apocalypse chores in the morning, but I have some fun living stuff to do. You two can hang out and learn ghost things.” With that, he was sweeping out the door.

“Klaus!” Ben called after him, fruitlessly. “Dammit.”

“Whatever,” Five waved dismissively. “He’s right, I need to know the limits of spiritual form. So, how far can you go from Klaus?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im still recovering from mouth surgery so no one can blame me for writing more of this instead of something productive
> 
> llllll;pll  
> That's a message from my cat, who refused to get off the keyboard while I'm trying to post this  
> find me at unluckyrose.tumblr.com


	3. A Chat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> time to try and drag Vanya into this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had a lot of anxiety and writer's block over this chapter, for some reason. It's like some unspoken rule for me that third chapters are always the hardest, it's weird

“Klaus!”

Klaus jerked awake, falling off the couch he'd fallen asleep on last night. His mind was fogged with typical sleepy confusion and a grating headache, but distantly he realized that whoever had shouted his name was a lot closer and louder than the shouts he always heard in his sleep. He groaned, then pushed himself up off the rug to see where exactly he was. There was a second of shock when he saw the familiar face of Number Five frowning down at him, but he quickly remembered what had happened yesterday.

Oh yeah, something about the apocalypse.

“I told you not to wake him up,” Ben said from across the room. He was sitting in a chair, not looking up from a book he was reading.

“We don’t have time for you to sleep off your bender from last night, Klaus, we have work to do,” Five berated, crossing his arms.

Klaus groaned again, fitting as much annoyance into the syllable was he could, and reached for his coat. Last night, he’d dumped it onto the floor, and now he’d half fallen on it. He stood up off of it so he could search the pockets. He wasn't high enough to deal with this.

“It's no use, you're out of drugs,” Ben said, still not bothering to look up. Asshole.

“You took them all last night,” Five scolded, “Instead of helping me stop the end of the world, which you  _ just _ promised you'd do.”

He did have a vague memory of Five and Ben hanging around in the distance and glaring at him  for most of last night. “You were busy doing ghost things!” he defended, “I was busy doing Klaus things.”

“Well now all three of us need to do apocalypse things. We have seven days now, and I don’t know how long it’ll take to convince Vanya to help us. Especially since it’ll only be your word.”

He did have a point, all of the siblings were pretty used to ignoring Klaus or assuming he wasn’t being serious. God, he didn’t even want to think about explaining this whole situation to any of the others. 

Instead of admitting he had absolutely no confidence in his ability to do literally first task Five had given him, right after insisting he let him help, he stood and vaulted over the couch. “I’ll do it, I’ll get to it. Right after I hit the pawn shop.” He scanned the contents of the trophy cabinet. Something had to be expensive in here. “Then we’ll have a fun day of running errands and translating ghost ramblings and all of that great and interesting stuff,” he muttered, distractedly.

To be completely honest, Klaus didn’t like helping ghosts. Not that he was against it on principal; when he was younger he used to do it all the time. Keep the child ghosts company, track down someone’s spouse to see if they’re okay, report their murders, things like that. The problem was that ghosts were greedy and self-absorbed and demanded all of his time after awhile. He really did like helping the nicer ones and getting the scared ones to calm down, cause death was super hard. But he couldn’t help all of them, or even most of them, and now any of them, really. Obviously he’d made an exception for Five, but the little asshole was already becoming the most annoying ghost he’d agreed to help.

“The world is ending and all you care about is getting high?” Five demanded, teleporting in between Klaus and the cabinet. “How did you already spend all that money you had yesterday?”

“Am I supposed to remember all of last night? Cause I really don’t,” Klaus moved to the other side of the cabinet so he could see around Five, but he just moved in the way again.  “Jesus! Just give me a minute, man. You’re so focused,”

“Because we’ll be dead in a week, we don’t have time to not be focused on this!”

Ben stood up and tried to clap his book shut for attention. It didn’t work, because it was a ghost-conjured book, and even if it wasn’t, it was paperback, but the movement caused the brothers to stop staring each other down and look at him.

“Guys, drop it. Let’s just get a move on. Klaus, you’ll probably have time after we talk to Vanya.”

Klaus rolled his eyes and sighed loudly, making sure his brothers knew how put out he was. “Fine! Fine. Let’s go visit Vanya.” He threw up his hand is frustration and swept out of the room. The ghosts didn’t move to follow him. After a second, he realized why and backtracked to put his clothes back on.

He was nearly out the front door when he was stopped by Pogo.

“Master Klaus, leaving already?”

He spun on his heel to face him, a little startled. “Hi! Pogo, yes, I’m leaving. Why?”

“Then I’m glad I caught you, I have a query for you.” The chimp glared up at him with a horribly familiar scolding look. Klaus mentally went over everything he’d done in the last few days, wondering which one of them was 1) bad enough that Pogo would confront him about it and 2) something Pogo could’ve even heard about. He came up blank.

“Ok, shoot. We’re kinda in a hurry,” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

Pogo glanced around the room. There was no one else there besides Klaus, to him, but he’d probably lived with Klaus for long enough to ignore when he accidentally referred to himself as plural. “Items from your father’s office have gone missing. In particular, an ornate box with a pearl inlay.”

Oh,  _ that’s _ what this was about. He’d totally forgot, he’d sold that thing before any of this chaos with Five showing up had even happened. He faked an innocent tone. “Really? You don’t say?”

Ben was looked disapproving. Five didn’t even look like he was paying attention, staring down at his own hands intently.

“Any idea where it went?” Pogo asked, in a tone that told Klaus he absolutely knew it was definitely him that took it.

“No, nope, no idea,” Klaus lied. He started walking backwards towards the main doors. “Sorry about that, hope you find it, but I’m actually really busy-”

Pogo stepped forward, and his glare stopped Klaus in his tracks. “The contents of that box are priceless.” Then he raised his eyebrows significantly. “Were they to find their way back to the office, whoever took it would be absolved of any blame or consequences.”

Klaus had to resist sighing again. Another thing to add to the to-do list, it looked like. He just threw that stuff in the dumpster yesterday, he could probably grab it sometime today after Five stopped bothering him about this Vanya thing. “Oh, well, lucky bastard,” he said.

“Indeed.”

Pogo finally turned and left, letting Klaus leave the academy and step out onto the street.

\--

  
  


When Klaus stepped off the bus, Ben had already appeared on the sidewalk and was waiting for him. He saw Vanya's apartment building just a little ways away, and Five was already standing exactly as far away as he could get, waiting for them to catch up.

“Sorry I have to walk like a normal, living human person!” Klaus shouted. In the distance, Five tapped his foot and glared. That glare could probably fry him even from two blocks away.

Klaus started walking, moving sideways so he could look at Ben. “So, how'd ghost training with the little guy go? Figure out any great revelations about death?”

Ben shook his head. “It's not like there's a lot about being a ghost. He wanted to know how to conjure and hold things, like I can with books, but it’s not exactly a thing that’s easy to teach. And how far we could get from you, since it’s you that’s letting us be here, but that seems to depend on how strong the ghost is. I spent most of the night trying to get him to talk about what happened after he disappeared, but…”

“But he was a horrible grouch that refused to admit to having emotions?”

“He didn't used to be  _ this _ bad,” Ben said. “Sure, he used to be arrogant and he wasn't the most affectionate when we were kids, but he's… all closed off now. It's so weird. He doesn't look like he's aged a day but he's different guy. Like you said, he’s really focused. Almost makes me believe this apocalypse stuff.”

That made Klaus pause. “You don't believe him? You seemed pretty gung ho about it yesterday. You were just  _ screaming _ for us to buy three tickets to the stop-the-end-times express.”

“He was finally letting us in, I thought if we play along he might talk to us,” Ben explained, “I mean, from the way he's acting, he's not okay. At least if we humor him he keeps talking to us.”

Klaus shrugged. “I don't see what's too unbelievable about it. World’s gotta end sometime. Besides, if anyone can figure out how to save a world he can't interact with, it's Five, the little smartass.”

“We just shouldn't take it too far, you know? Don't do anything stupidly crazy for him or something,” Ben warned.

“Aw, but stupidly crazy is what I'm best at!” Klaus tilted his head and gave a lazy smile, and then almost tripped over his own feet. Ben snorted.

Klaus righted himself, and looked up to see how far they were. Five was now standing at the entrance of Vanya's apartment building, leaning against a wall and glaring at them. He was still just out of hearing distance. “But yeah, we'll take care of the little psycho, apocalypse or not, don't worry Ben, because I'm a wonderful brother and I love him. He's just an asshole that doesn't make it easy.” It didn't help that it seemed like Five's first order of business was to figure out how to get as far away from Klaus as possible. 

Ben crossed his arms and frowned disapprovingly. “You know, running off on a bender the second he started to actually ask for help didn't exactly show your dedication to this,”

He so didn't want to have this talk right now. “I mean, I'm still me, brother mine,” he brushed it off. “Ol’ Unreliable. Never know what I might do next,”

“Klaus-”

“We're kind of on a deadline here!” Five snapped. Klaus jerked his head up in surprise, but luckily it didn't look like Five had overheard the whole conversation. He would probably look more murderous if he had. 

“We're coming, hold your horse.”

Welp, time to play ghost translator. His favorite.

\--

 

Klaus rapped on the door in front of him. Even if he hadn't known her address, he would've known Vanya was in there from the soft violin music coming from inside. The music paused for a second as Vanya said through the door, “Mr. Puddles isn't here!”, and then she continued playing.

Klaus knocked again, this time in the shave and a haircut rhythm. The music stopped again, and he heard footsteps coming to the door. Vanya's face appeared, looking a little confused, and then even more confused when she saw who was there.

“Klaus? What are you doing here?”

“A man can't visit his little sister unannounced?” 

“We're the same age,” she corrected, immediately. Then, “And of course you can visit, Klaus, you just… never have?” Still, she pushed the door open fully for him to enter. He accepted, waltzing past her and flopping onto her couch.

“I have too visited you!”

She gently kicked the door closed and moved over to sit down in the chair facing the couch. While she spoke, she carefully put her violin and bow back in the case. “Well, you've stopped by in the middle of the night to crash on my couch and drink all my alcohol,” she said.

“Tomato, tomahto.” he clapped once. “Hey, you wouldn't happen to have anything to drink right now, would you?”

“It's not even 4 in the afternoon,”

Klaus raised an eyebrow. “And?”

Vanya rolled her eyes and stood. “Okay, I'll get you a glass. But I shouldn't drink, I have lessons today.”

“Ah, right, you teach now too. A shaper of young minds,”

“Klaus, stop wasting time,” Five berated. He was standing in front of the brick fireplace, arms crossed. Ben was still standing near the door, doing his favorite thing; hovering in the background. No, wait, his favorite thing was hovering  _ judgmentally _ in the background.

“We're catching up, don't get your stupidly big suit in a twist,” Klaus responded to Five.

Vanya turned around. “...What?”

“Not you,” he clarified. Oddly, instead of brushing it off like he expected, she paused. She looked down at the glass in her hand swishing it slightly as she thought. He watched her fidget with it for a moment, biting her lip as if she was trying to find words. Then she looked back up at him.

“I thought… you said you couldn't talk to ghosts right now,” she said.

He laughed. “I said I couldn’t talk to  _ dad _ right now. Some of em are too stubborn to show up, some are too stubborn to go away. Never the one you mean to summon, either.” 

There was another pause. Vanya's frown deepened and she tapped the glass with her fingers in thought. Klaus sat up, not really sure what she was building herself up to asking.

“Is it Five?”

Oh. “Oh, that was easier than I thought,” Klaus said. Five stood up straighter, looking at Vanya with an unreadable expression.

“What?” she asked, clearly confused by that reaction.

“Yeah, yes, it is Number Five,” Klaus clarified. “The little boy genius, back with us, sort off.”

Vanya carefully set the glass down on the table in front of Klaus, then she collapsed back into her chair, hands covering her face.

And here it was, the worst part of this whole thing. Not being used as a ghost translator again, not Five breathing down his neck, not even people not believing him. The worst part was that Klaus had to confirm it. Five was dead.

Death was always a little weird for Klaus. Obviously, given his powers. All the time, he would see and talk to those who were supposed to be gone, who cried over their fates and who would never speak to their loved ones again, but they could speak to Klaus. Of course they usually screamed at him and demanded he help when he couldn't do shit for them, but they were there. He didn't take death that seriously, but at the same time understood it on a different level. 

When they were 13, after Five disappeared, he'd tried to summon his spirit. Over and over again. But even at his most sober moments, Five hadn't ever turned up. And he had been so torn between sadness and relief. He couldn't see or talk to his lost brother, but that meant that he was still out there somewhere. And even though he missed Five so deeply, at least he was alive. At least it wasn't over for him. 

For everyone else, death was the end, but for Klaus, they were still there. There in a way that made them his responsibility. He had to be there because no one else could be. 

Vanya and Ben and the others would ask him, quietly with soft dread in their voice, if he'd seen Five (Dad asked once or twice too, but it was in an emotionless and matter of fact way) and he could assure them that Five was still out there. But he always dreaded the day that his brother's spirit would actually show up, and when one of his siblings cautiously asked, he'd have to tell them. 

And all these years later, it had to be now. Now he had to look poor little Vanya in the eyes and tell her that their missing brother was finally found, just not how they wanted. 

Man, he still really wanted to run away from this situation. Damn conscience. Damn Ben for not letting him pretend seeing was Five was just a hallucination.

“I… thought maybe, because you were acting weird and said something about him after the wormhole thing, I had a suspicion…but I didn't...” Vanya whispered, trailing off. Klaus moved to the end of the couch so he could reach over and rub her back.

“I know, but hey! He's here.”

She nodded and rubbed her face. Klaus looked up at Five, to see how he was reacting to this. He had moved to stand on Vanya's other side and was staring down at her, invisible and unnoticed. He looked more surprised than Klaus had expected, and his eyes were sad and regretful. 

Five glanced up to see Klaus looking at him and broke himself out of it. “Tell her not to bother mourning me if I'm not actually gone, we have more important things to worry about.”

“Wow, I won't be saying that cause that's pretty harsh man.” 

Vanya's head snapped up and she looked around, her eyes passing over Five without stopping. “Are you talking to him?”

“Yeah,” Klaus pointed at Five. Vanya’s eyes focused onto the empty space where Five was standing. She stared for a few seconds, as if looking hard enough would make him appear. Five’s expression didn’t change.

“Um, so,” she started, glancing away from the empty space to direct the question at Klaus. “What- what happened, actually? Why would he only show up now? Was he somewhere else?”

Five looked over her head at Klaus to answer. “It was hard to get back to the exact place I needed. I couldn’t come back any sooner because I would have been noticed and it would give too much time for the apocalypse to happen, it would be better for me to swoop in near the end and stop it before anyone could stop me. Also, the equations were off, I meant to show up at least a little bit earlier. And as my own age. And to be alive.”

“He says a lot of cryptic shit that adds up to ‘time travel crap’,” Klaus told Vanya.

She let out a small, half-sob half-laugh. “Did he just… get lost in time or something? Is he the same Five that left?”

“That’s a hard question,” Klaus scratched the back of his neck and looked up at Five again.

“Getting lost in time is a pretty accurate way of putting it. I went too far forward in time, and I got stuck. Stuck for a very long time.” Five paused and sighed, as if accentuating the point that he was much older than he looked. 

“He was in the future and couldn't figure out how to get back,” Klaus explained to Vanya, “For a long time, he says.”

“The future?” 

“I ended up in the apocalypse. I was the only one alive, as far as I knew. There wasn't any indication of what caused the apocalypse,  but I did find out the day it happens. So, I survived on whatever I could find, and tried to work out how to get back so I could prevent it.”

“Yeah you did mention something like that,” 

Five glared at him and motioned towards Vanya. “Well tell  _ her _ !”

“Jeez, calm down,” he hated this. He looked back at Vanya, who was waiting for clarification. “So, the future where he got stuck? End of times. He lived there for a long time, then he figured out how to get back. Except he still looks the same age as when he left, for some reason.”

Vanya sat up straighter, jerking away from the Klaus still had on her back. She was frowning, looking between the space where Five was and Klaus. “Klaus… that, doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re telling me.”

“But…” She pasued, “He was there for a long time, but he still looks the same age to you? How long is a long time? And why didn’t he just time travel back?”

Klaus looked at Five for the answer. The ghost’s expression had morphed from the quiet sadness to frustration. “I just said, the equations were wrong! I  _ tried _ to get back. I  _ died _ getting back.”

Vanya was waiting for an answer. “The, uh, equations were wrong?” Klaus offered.

Uh oh, she her expression had fully changed to annoyed now too. “Klaus… just to be clear, here, you wouldn’t lie about something like, would you?”

“What?!” Klaus shot up out of his seat. “Come on, I thought we were getting somewhere! He’s here, Vanya you guessed that!”

“Okay, yes, he’s here, I believe you about that,” she backtracked, though Klaus didn’t think she looked fully convinced. In fact, she looked a little hurt. “If he’s here, this doesn’t make sense. You’re only seeing him now? He looks younger than he is? End times? When did he even…” she trailed off.

“You’re not explaining it right,” Five accused.

“I’m explaining it best I can! Sorry I’m not the best at emotional ghost telephone!” 

“Well whatever the story is, I’m not getting it,” Vanya said.

“Okay, let’s try to salvage this,” Klaus held up a hand and started counting on his fingers. “Here are the bulletpoints. He ran away, ended up in the apocalypse. He lived there for a bit, then tried to get back. He ended up here, but died, and is somehow a kid again. Now we gotta stop the apocalypse for him because he can’t. We’ve got a week. He wanted me to recruit you for fun apocalypse-related errands,” he waved his hand as he finished counting off the bulletpoints. “There. Main points, organized. I’m a great translator. Now you get the whole situation.”

“...What?” Vanya asked. Fuck. She didn’t get the whole situation. “I’m sorry, apocalypse, in a week?”

“That’s the jist, yeah,” Klaus crossed his arms, “We need your help, I guess. He says so.”

Vanya opened her mouth, then stopped. Then opened her mouth again and said, “Klaus… this is just, a little hard to believe. It’s a lot to take in.”

“Again, you’re telling me.”

“What if… you know, dad said time travel could mess with the mind, and he’s…. Dead. Just. Have you considered that… this is just Five coping with everything?” she said slowly.

Five made a sound like a strangle scream of frustration and stomped through the wall. 

“Oh, he didn’t like that,” Klaus said, eye following the ghost as he left.

Vanya flinched. “Sorry, I would’ve asked in private, but I didn’t think I could. But Klaus, could I be right?”

“That’s he’s just a crazy ghost trying to cope with his horrible death? Maybe,” Klaus rubbed a hand down his face. “I believe him, but I guess all the smart people- besides him- think he’s crazy. You know, he was just yelling at me about wasting time but he felt like it was important enough to confide in you that we come here before doing anything else.”

Vanya looked pretty surprised at that. There was another few moments of silence as she took that in, and then she said, “That’s… it doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

“It doesn’t! He might be crazy!” Klaus admitted, “What do I know! I’m just along for the ride. But here’s the million dollar question, what if he isn’t?” Vanya’s expression turned even more concerned and she went back to looking down at the untouched glass in consideration. When she didn’t seem to have a response, Klaus went on, “You know what, it doesn’t matter if he is or not. I just wanted to help him deal with this, and that’s what I’m doing. Jeez, he finally lets me help and he just immediately asks me to get someone else to help. All of you do that! I don’t know what his plans are or why I can’t be trusted to run apocalypse errands on my own.” Klaus stopped. “I got off track. Where was I?” Vanya looked like she was about to interrupt him, when Ben beat her to it.

“Hey, Klaus? There’s this dude standing outside the door.”

“Huh?” Klaus looked up. Ben was standing half in the wall a further across the room. Guess he’d stepped out sometime during the whole conversation and Klaus hadn’t noticed. Now he nodded towards the doorway.

“There's some guy standing outside. He’s been there for like ten minutes. I thought he was just looking for something, or waiting to knock, but he’s just standing there.”

“I think he’s eavesdropping,” Five supplied, stepping back through the wall to contribute. “You should tell her to keep her doors locked tonight.”

“What is it?” Vanya asked, noticing Klaus’s sudden distraction.

“There’s someone at your door,” Klaus whispered, trying not to give away to the eavesdropper that he knew. “Ben says he’s been there for ten minutes,”

Vanya looked at the clock. “Oh shit, it’s past 4. I had a lesson at 4, he’s-” she rushed towards the door, then stopped. “Wait, did you say Ben?”

The guy at the door knocked. Klaus moved past her and flung the door open. The guy there didn’t look too threatening, just a scrawny weirdo. “Hey,” the guy said, looking uncertainly between Klaus and Vanya. “Uh, I’m your 4’o clock? I heard some yelling so I wasn’t sure if it was a bad time-”

“I am  _ so _ sorry,” Vanya apologized. She pushed past Klaus to the door, so she could face the newcomer. “It’s just, my brother came over and I forgot the time, I’m sorry your lesson is late.”

“It’s fine,” the man insisted, “Trust me, I know family stuff comes up. Do you need to reschedule?”

“Nope, I was just on my way actually,” Klaus slipped out the door. 

“Klaus, are you sure?” Vanya asked.

“Yep, you’re busy, I’ll just go work on important business.” he saluted with his goodbye hand. “Talk to ya later, V.”

She frowned, but didn’t stop him from leaving. “Alright, but we will talk later, okay?” Klaus nodded and swept down the hallway. He heard Vanya apologizing even more to the guy as they vanished into her apartment.

“Are you sure we should just leave?” Ben asked, “I don’t like that guy.”

“Don’t be paranoid, Ben, He’s just some dude gettin violin lessons,” Klaus shrugged.

“You also didn’t get her on our side,” Ben pointed out. “That’s why we were here.”

Klaus waved him off. Surprisingly, Five nodded. “I was foolish to think she’d listen,” he admitted, “She wouldn’t understand. Let’s just get going, we have to figure something else out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> turns out when i'm not sick or recovering from anything it gives my brain too much time to overthink. writing isn't great for anxiety
> 
> hope you enjoyed, thanks for all the nice comments!  
> find me at unluckyrose.tumblr.com


	4. Rock-Paper-Scissors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the boys waste time

“Soooo… are you gonna share with the group? Let us in on the plan?” Klaus asked.

Five ignored him, instead focusing on his hands. In his mind's eye, he could perfectly picture the glass eye. He'd held onto it for decades, he'd memorized every millimeter of its surface, he could probably see it in his sleep if he was able to sleep anymore. 

Ben had told him conjuring things you had before wasn't like willing a ghostly form of something you know by heart into existence. He'd actually been horribly unhelpful about the whole thing. Things that he wanted to hold would just appear in his hands, he said, without concentration or effort. He did have to know the item a little bit, he couldn't read books he hadn't read before, but didn't have to know every inch of it. 

It must have something to do with Klaus’ powers. It was him that even allowed Five and Ben to be here. Ben seemed to think that anything he was able to do was a result of Klaus, unconsciously at least. It might have something to do with the connection between them, the same thing that made Ben powerful enough to stick around when Klaus was out of it enough that all other ghosts were drowned out. The familiarity must be what made Ben more powerful than the other spirits. 

Klaus and Five didn’t have that connection. The familiarity of brothers, ones that grew up together and didn’t get separated at 13 years old. Klaus didn’t even really know Five. It had been so long, even longer for Five.

He blinked away the thought when Klaus waved a hand in his field of vision. “Earth to Five? We’re here on your instructions, dude. What plan is racking around in that big brain of yours? Did you just want us to hang out in the street in brotherly silence?” 

There was no plan. Five had no idea how to find the owner of an eye that he didn't have, when he couldn't even summon a memory of it. Sure he remembered the company name but even  _ his  _ mind is fallible; he couldn't recall the entire serial number perfectly. He knew it was likely he would misremember one number and end up chasing down the complete wrong person. Honestly, the hope was that if he dragged them to MeriTech, he'd figure something out before they got there, and he hadn’t. 

“Brotherly silence it is!” Klaus said, when he didn’t answer, and settled back into the public bench where he sat. “I wish I had bought ice cream. I think there's a shop nearby, actually. I could get something nice with m&ms mixed in. Except, shit, I'm broke again. Knew I should've found something else to hock before we left. This is your guys’ fault. You hear that, Ben? It's your fault I don't have ice cream right now.”

“A tragedy.” Ben said, unsympathetically. Five glanced up to see Ben looking at with curiosity and a little bit of worry. “Are you still trying to conjure something?”

“Obviously,” Five huffed. 

“Oh yeah, I never really questioned how he could do that before,” Klaus mused. “What did you need to conjure? Some fitting clothes? Cause Ben's tried, sorry man, you're stuck in that outfit indefinitely.” 

This suit  _ was _ stupidly large on his 13 year old body. Dying sucked. “I'm trying to conjure our one lead, and it's not working.” Five muttered. He ran a hand through his hair and looked up at the MeriTech building.

Klaus stood up and looked up at the building too. “Our one lead in… stopping the apocalypse?”

“Yes.” Five glared down at his empty hands again, then flopped onto the bench in defeat. “In the future, I… found this prosthetic eye. I need to find out who owned it. Thus, MeriTech.” He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the building across the street.

Klaus turned around to glance at the building, then back at Five. “So… you lost the eye… so you can't find it in the now?”

“'Lost’, along with my body,” Five replied bitterly. “My only lead and its atoms are probably scattered across time.”

Klaus and Ben both winced. 

Then, Klaus sat back down on the bench and considered the building. After a minute, he said, “I mean, they've gotta have some files or something inside with the names of people who have their eyes. How about some good old-fashioned b&e?”

Five raised an eyebrow. “You want to break into a prosthetics lab?” 

Klaus scoffed and twirled his hand in a proud gesture. “I break into places all the time.” He paused. “Not like, all the time. And never this secure. But hey, it's better than sitting out here and being bored. Unless you'd rather play rock-paper-scissors or something. Ben always wins when I play against him.”

“You follow a pattern!” Ben shouted, as if they’ve had this argument many times, and they probably had, “You can't just always play the next one in the sequence and expect to win! If you played rock last round, you go paper, if you played paper, you go scissors. You're an idiot.” 

“It's my strategy,” Klaus claimed, as if saying something wise.

“A strategy is supposed to help you win.”

“That's it,” Klaus turned to fully face Ben and held up his hands in the starting position for rock-paper-scissors. “Let's go. Right now.”

Ben leaned forward and mimicked the hand position. Five watched, distantly wondering how they'd gotten so distracted so easily, as the two played a few rounds. The first round, they both threw scissors. The second, Klaus threw rock and Ben threw paper. The third, Klaus threw paper and Ben threw scissors. The fourth round, Klaus threw a middle finger.

Five rolled his eyes. “Children, we were doing something here.”

“Were we?” Klaus asked, at the same time Ben said, “Sorry, Five.”

“Klaus, you're actually right,” Five started, “We can't do this the easy way if we don't actually have the eye, we'll have to break in. I could probably get in and find it myself, if I wasn't incorporeal. We don't have any plans for the lab-”

“Shhh,” Klaus waved a hand in Five's face, ignoring the death glare he was fixed with in return  “I've got it. I have hands that can touch stuff and everything! And two incorporeal lookouts. I've got this man, just shut up that big brain of yours until sunset, unless you want to risk sneaking in when everyone's there. Calm down and play rock-paper-scissors with us.” 

Five hardened his glare as Klaus held up his hands in the starting position for rock-paper-scissors again. Behind him, Ben looked torn between laughing and telling Klaus to back down. Klaus didn't look like he was backing down, he just raised his eyebrows and raised his hands up a little.

He had a point. They couldn't sneak in anywhere when everyone was still awake and working in the building. They'd have to wait until night. Without the eye or the ability to write, he really couldn't make any progress on his own. Trying to tell others would be pointless, if Vanya hadn't listened obviously no one else would.

“Hmmmm?” Klaus hummed. 

Five let out a loud, put upon sigh, and held up his hands for rock-paper-scissors.

\--

 

It was nearly an hour later when Ben suggested to Klaus that they go for a walk or something, rather than hang around outside the building until nightfall and worry the pedestrians going by who couldn't see who Klaus was talking to. Arguing with thin air about whether or not different gestures could be added to rock-paper-scissors sort of made people nervous (though Klaus was determined that there should be at least three other gestures, to make the game more interesting) and more importantly, it makes people remember you. As soon as leaving was suggested, Klaus had jumped up and announced, “Let's get coffee!”

Five looked up wistfully, as if thinking of the past (future?). “God, I already miss coffee.”

“Truly that must be the worst part of not being alive,” Klaus said, “The true mark of life.”

“You're joking but coffee was probably one of the main reasons I stayed alive as long as I did.” Five said, far too seriously.

Klaus stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled widely at a passing stranger that was regarding him with suspicion. They started walking faster when he did so, and quickly disappeared around the corner.

“This is the most obvious stakeout in history,” Ben sighed, watching the stranger go. 

Klaus spun on his heel and started down the road. “Eh, there are a million crazy assholes in this city, no one'll care. Besides, I've been to jail before. I survived.”

Ben winced. “Can you try not to get arrested?”

“That would be inconvenient,” Five added.

Klaus put a hand over his heart and looked over his shoulder at the two ghosts following him. “Your concern is so touching. I can feel the love!”

\--

 

Klaus didn't actually have a particular destination in mind, nor money for the bus, nor money for coffee for that matter, so he ended up just wandering the streets aimlessly. He spent most of the time chatting nonsense with his brothers or continuing the rock-paper-scissors argument.

After about an hour, Klaus had to shove his shaking hands into his pockets again. It occurred to him he hadn't had a hit all day, since he didn't have anything left after last night and Five had chased him out the door. The sun wasn't near setting yet, and he wondered if he had time to head back to the academy and find something to hock. Then he glanced at the little time traveller, who was staring straight ahead with his brow furrowed, and decided against it. Five would be pissed if he was too high to pull of this heist, especially since he'd just assured him he could do it. And Klaus had just made a big deal about being able to stop the apocalypse without Vanya’s help, he probably shouldn't fuck up the first step right away. 

He could do this, just this one thing.

“God this is boring,” he complained, “Guys, I spy… something red.”

Five blinked and frowned up at him. “I am not playing I Spy with you. We're not children.”

Ben leaned forward. “Is it that stop sign?”

He could always count on good old Ben. Klaus clapped his hands through his coat pockets. “Ben wins! That means it's his turn.”

Ben considered the street they were walking down for a few moments, then said, “I spy… something yellow.”

“Is it also a street sign?” Klaus asked. Most street signs were yellow, but would he go for something so similar to Klaus’s choice?

Ben shook his head. Wrong. Klaus looked up and down the street, scanning for yellow thing, and then he saw it. “Oh shit! Is it that dog?” 

“Bingo.”

He stopped dead, watching a yellow lab that was sitting on the sidewalk across the street, tied to a bike rack. Klaus wanted to cross the road and say hi, but he didn't see the dog’s owner anywhere. They had probably just left it for a minute while they went inside of the shops. “Rookie mistake, Benny boy, you know I always hone in on dogs like a beacon.”

“You didn't get it right away, though.” Ben countered. “You only win cause Five didn’t guess.”

Five had stopped walking too, staring over at the dog. Then he started walking again, just a few feet ahead, and then he walked back. Then he vanished and reappeared a few feet ahead. Just before Klaus could ask what he was doing, he said, “Is that dog looking at me?”

Klaus considered the dog's line of sight. It did look like it was staring directly at Five, a big doggy smile on its face and its ears raised a little. “Huh, I think it is.” he shrugged. “Animals react weird to ghosts sometimes. One time Ben scared the crap out of a poor stray cat and it scratched me to hell.”

Ben frowned deeply. “It could see me, I thought maybe it would let me get close.” Poor guy was still heartbroken.

Five rubbed his chin in thought. “...huh.”

Klaus started walking again. As interesting as dogs were, he didn’t really want to hang out and wait for the owner to reappear so Five could test ghost powers on it for whatever. He needed distraction.  “Anyway, I still guessed it right, so it's my turn. I spy… something black.”

Both ghosts jogged a little to catch up with him. Once Ben was right beside him, he scanned the surroundings. “Is it the parking lot over there?”

“Nope,” Klaus said, popping the ‘p’.

“Is it that parking meter?”

“Nope!”

Ben frowned and did a full spin, trying to see what he could have missed.

“Is it Ben's entire outfit?” Five suggested, dully.

“Bingo!” Klaus pointed at Five and fist pumped. 

“You can't spy me, that's not fair!” Ben protested, shoving his own hands in the pockets of his hoodie. 

“There's nothing in the rules about spying a fellow spier, Benny,” Klaus shrugged. “Five won! It's his turn.”

Klaus was expecting some noise of protest about childishness from his tiniest brother, but instead Five just hummed in surprise and said, “It's Diego.”

“That's not really how this game works-” Klaus started, but then his eyes landed on two people walking on the sidewalk in the other direction. It was indeed Diego, and some lady with a ponytail, big coat, and a badge. She was also holding a good old cup of late afternoon coffee, giving off the impression of someone who was far too busy to be dealing with this. They were just a little bit ahead and walking towards him, though neither seemed to have noticed Klaus.

Continuing to walk at a normal pace towards them, he heard a little bit of their conversation.

“I don’t know why you think I can just waste police time with non-police investigations,” The woman was saying. She seemed frustrated and exhausted, but not angry.

“It’s not wasted time, this is important, Eudora,” Diego said. He was holding something in a ziploc bag, but Klaus couldn’t really see what it was from here.

“Don’t call me that. And you need to file a police report.”

“This isn’t police business.”

“Then you can’t use police resources! The lab isn’t just free for anyone to use, it’s for investigating police matters!” The woman sighed and ran a hand over her face. “Why can’t you just hand it over to the police? What even is it?”

“I don’t know, that’s what I need you to find out,” Diego jiggled whatever was in the bag a little. “It’s… Umbrella Academy stuff, not police stuff.” Diego admitted. He looked pained when he said it. “They wouldn’t know what to do about this kind of thing.”

“I thought you were done with Umbrella Academy stuff,” the policewoman frowned, “I didn’t think there was ‘Umbrella Academy stuff’ anymore.”

“Neither did I.” Diego said, “But here we are. This could be really important, can you please at least have it run for prints? Without paperwork?”

The policewoman stopped walking and faced Diego, looking like she was either considering it or about to shout at him. However, before she could answer, she noticed Klaus, who was now close enough to actually hop into the conversation instead of eavesdrop. She narrowed her eyes at him when he came to a stop in front of them. “... Hey, do I know you?”

Klaus shrugged. “Maybe?” People with badges tended to know him. He’s probably met every officer at least once, and not in a good way. “Diego! What wonderful coincidence has made our strolls cross paths?”

Diego raised an eyebrow. “Did that sequence of words make sense in your own head?”

“Sorta.”

His knifiest brother crossed his arms. “What are you doing here, Klaus? I’m kind of busy.” Diego hunched slightly. Aw, was he embarrassed to talk to his junkie brother in front of his cop friend? 

“I’m just going for a walk, is that against the rules?” Klaus asked. He crossed his arms too and tilted his head to try and peek at what Diego was holding. “I was just trying to kill some time, but who do I come across but my dear brother, off being suspicious without me?” 

“I’m working, Klaus, I know it’s a weird concept for you to grasp but some of us have jobs.”

“This  _ isn’t _ your job, actually,” the detective corrected.

Klaus laughed at the glare she and Diego exchanged. “I like her. Who’s your friend?”

The woman held out a hand to shake. “I’m Detective Patch, and I’m not really Diego’s friend,”

Klaus shook her hand. “I’m Klaus, and I  _ am _ Diego’s brother, no matter how embarrassed he is of me.” Klaus threw his other arm over Diego’s shoulders and was immediately pushed off.

“Well, our conversation was over, actually, so I’ll be going. Nice to meet you, Klaus.” Patch turned on her heel to leave, and Diego backtracked quickly to jump in her way.

“Wait, Eudora-”

“Detective Patch.” she corrected.

“Seriously. Just this one favor?” Diego held out the bag to her. “Please. Just some fingerprints, analysis, whatever you can. I don’t know what this is but I think it’s important.”

For the first time, Klaus was close enough to actually see what was in the bag. It was a small device that looked a bit like a tiny, green LED light. It was shaped like a capsule, with one side blinking consistently every few seconds. The most concerning thing about this was that, the second it was in sight, Five straight-up gasped.

“Klaus!” Five shouted, “Get that thing away from him!”

Considering this was the first time since he’d come back that Five had actually sounded panicked, Klaus didn’t waste time asking him why. Instead, he surged forward and said, “Hey, can I see that for a sec?”

Just before he could grab it, Diego snatched it away. “No, Klaus, this is important.”

“Just let me see it!” Klaus snatched at it again, but Diego held it out of his reach. They tussled over it for a few seconds, in an extremely childish way that made Patch chuckle quietly behind them. Finally, Diego placed a hand on Klaus’s forehead and shoved him back.

“You said it’s Umbrella Academy stuff, I’m Umbrella Academy, let me see it!” Klaus whined.

Diego glared. “Don’t listen in on my conversations. And this is serious, Klaus, you can’t help with it.”

“I can’t help with serious business?”

“No.”

“Cold, brother mine.” 

“Klaus!” Five repeated urgently. “It’s probably already too late!”

“For what?” Klaus whispered to his left, where Five was standing.

“You need to smash that thing!”

“Just, will you take this?” Diego sighed, holding the ziploc out to Patch again. She took it and held the small machine up to the light. 

“Where did you find this again?” she asked. 

“Where  _ did  _ he get it?” Five wondered. Klaus pushed past Diego and reached out to try and grab it from Patch, but she jumped out of the way.

“What the hell is your problem, Klaus?” Diego elbowed him in the chest. It felt like he hit him directly in the lungs and Klaus fell back, a winded. Patch stepped around him, unknowingly walking directly through Five, and started down the sidewalk in the direction Klaus had just come from.

“I can’t promise anything, but I’ll see what I can do, okay?” She called over her shoulder. 

“No!” Five appeared directly next to her and walked alongside her, even though she couldn’t see him. 

“Is she in danger, Five?” Ben asked, jogging after him.

“Yes! And while we’re near it, so are we!”

Okay, now he knew that thing was actually dangerous he couldn’t just say ‘fuck it’. Well, he could, but Five seemed really upset about this thing and now that a random person was in danger Ben would be on his back about letting her go off without any idea that she was in danger at least. As soon as he had his breath back, he sprinted after Patch. It had taken him a little bit to get up so she was about a block away now, but he had a few seconds headstart because Diego hadn’t realized what he was doing right away. Diego was running after him now, and was much faster, but he was nearly there. He just needed to wrestle it away from her-

Patch’s elbow collided with his forehead. He fell to the ground, hand over his forehead where he was sure a bump was going to form. Ow.

Diego caught up to him. “What the hell are you doing, assaulting a police officer?”

Patch was standing with one hand on her hip and the other on her gun. “Mind explaining yourself, Mr. Hargreeves?”

Klaus couldn’t help a giggle. “‘Mr. Hargreeves’,” he repeated, rolling onto his back on the sidewalk.

Diego ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Detective, I don’t know what the hell he’s doing. Is asking you not to arrest him right too much? Cause I don’t really have the extra money for bail yet, and I don’t think he meant anything by it.”

Patch snapped her fingers, “I  _ thought  _ I knew him from somewhere. Haven’t you had to bail him out before?”

“Yeah,” Diego said, sounding defeated. Wow, it wasn’t like Klaus had  _ made him _ pay bail all those times. This is exactly why he didn’t call him when he was arrested anymore.

“Seriously though, Detective, you can’t take that machine thingy,” Klaus said, looking up at her from the ground, trying to school his face into a serious expression. She’d already slipped the bag into her pocket, so he couldn’t easily take it from her.

Five whispered “Oh, shit,” from up ahead. “Klaus! New plan! Get the fuck out of here!”

Oh that can’t be good. Klaus sat up to see what Five was looking at. The group had stopped in front of an alleyway, a small and dark one, but when he looked down it he could see faint movement from several people wearing all black. They all had guns. Across the street, he could hear the dog from before barking.

“Detective!” Klaus shouted, pointing behind her. Patch ducked just in time, drawing her own gun as the crowd of strangers poured out of the alleyway and surrounded them.

“Fuck, this is exactly what I didn’t want to happen,” Five muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> patch is a skyrim guard going "Wait... i know you" and klaus is the player carrying 300 pounds of stolen cheese wheels
> 
> so, i'm moving across the country at the end of the month. I have a LOT of work to do for that and might not have any free time to write more until June. Super apologies if there's a gap in updates, i promise i'll get the next chapter up as soon as i have time to write it  
> i really appreciate all your comments though, they give me life, i hope you enjoyed <3
> 
> find me at unluckyrose.tumblr.com


	5. Shootout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> guns are scary

“We just want information,” the stranger nearest Klaus explained. Klaus thought that sounded like bullshit, because people who just wanted a chat didn't tend to wear all black and surround you with guns.

“Are you looking for directions to the nearest Hot Topic?” Klaus asked.

The glare that he got from all present, dead and alive, made him decide it was best to stay quiet and let Patch and Diego handle this.

Patch had her gun drawn and trained on the first guy, the one right in front of Klaus. Diego had moved to stand back-to-back with her and held a knife in each hand. Both of them looked both confused and horribly aware that even if either of them got an attack off on one of the guys, the others could kill them all in a second.

“I’m Detective Eudora Patch, would you like to explain why you're holding a gun on a police officer in broad daylight?” Patch asked, voice commanding as she tried to take a hold of the situation. She shifted her coat slightly so her badge was more visible.

“I just said, we're just here for information,” the first guy said, unaffected. “I don't wanna shoot a cop, but I will. This is bigger than the police, ma'am.”

“We'll see how much bigger this is than the police when backup gets here,” Patch threatened. “I already called them.” It was very obviously a lie, she hadn’t had time to pull out her radio in the 2 seconds it had taken all the guys to pour out of the alley and surround the group.

The man shook his head, and whether he saw through the lie or not, he didn't respond.

“He doesn't care because he's disposable,” Five explained. Klaus hesitantly looked away from the gun he was staring down to look at the ghost. Five was slipping between the strangers and circling the formation, eyes roaming over them like he was some sort of robot performing a scan. He didn't dare asking what he meant out loud, but Five kept talking anyway. “These are just local hires. They sent them knowing they would probably die.” Then he paused, squinting at one of the gunmen behind Diego. “This one's tired. take him out first. The one talking to Patch is too moral and will hesitate to fire, he’s spending far too long talking. This one is less experienced and has more of a chance to panic-”

“What is- what are you doing right now?” Klaus whispered, tilting his head to look at Five around the gunman standing directly in front of him. 

“Helping you, with intel.”

“What the hell do you expect me to do?”

“Fight them!” 

“Me? They have guns!”

The first gunman glanced behind him, then back at Klaus. “Who the hell are you talking to?” He asked, waving his gun closer to Klaus’s face.

Diego and Patch rotated so they were still back-to-back but Diego was closer to the man pointing a gun at Klaus. “It doesn't matter who he's talking to, you don't need to worry about him, you need to worry about me.” Diego reached out a hand and snapped in front of the guy's face to draw his attention. The gunman turned, pointing his gun at Diego instead, and Klaus flinched at the look of anger that Diego had just drawn to himself.

“Who do you work for?” Patch asked quickly, before Diego could continue antagonizing the man. “And what information do you think we have?”

The gunmen hesitated. In the moment of silence, Klaus heard the dog across the street, barking its head off. He wondered where the hell the owner was, and also why no one else on this street was coming to help. Then he remembered they were surrounded by men with scary guns and honestly not many people would willingly get wrapped up in that. “We're not at liberty to say,” One of the others, someone Klaus had his back to, finally said. “We're just meant to either bring you in or dispose of you, your choice.”

“Great, lackeys,” Diego sighed. “Listen, we’re not going anywhere.”

“Diego let me handle this,” Patch hissed.

“Here’s a question,” Klaus whispered, not addressing the gunmen but instead looking back at Five. “You know what’s happening here, what the fuck do they want?”

“Information you can’t give them,” Five answered, crossing his arms. Then he paused. “I don’t know exactly why they’re here, but they’re probably trying to figure out what I was up to when I died.”

Klaus opened his mouth to ask, ‘Stopping the apocalypse?’ then very quickly realized the gunmen could hear him and that probably wasn’t very smart. 

“I really hoped this wouldn’t happen, considering I’m already dead.” Five sighed. Klaus could practically see all the gears turning in that little head as the tiny genius tried to think of a way to get them out of this situation.

Patch was saying something, so Klaus tuned back into his physical surroundings. “None of us know what information you’re looking for, but I can tell you for sure these civilians aren’t involved, so if you’ll just let them go we can talk this over, without guns.” 

“That’s not one of the choices,” the gunman said, “The choices are come with us or die.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Diego said. 

“They’re all paying attention to the other two, if you’re quick enough you could take out this one and this one,” Five advised, pointing at the ones he meant. 

“ _ How? _ ” Klaus glared at the ghost. “Who do you think I am, Batman? The Flash? I can’t move that fast!”

“The point would be to take them out before they noticed you were doing anything,” Five explained.

“I can’t teleport,” Klaus hissed.

Suddenly a gun was much, much too close to his face again. “Okay, who are you talking to?” the first gunman snapped. Mr. Hesitant was losing his patience, it seemed. Klaus had that effect on people. Klaus held up his hands and resisted the urge to step back because he knew another gunman was directly behind him.

“They said this mark is sneaky,” one of the other gunmen whispered to the one in front of Klaus, a whisper easily heard because of the proximity. “What if he’s playing us somehow?”

“By talking to thin air?” Klaus asked sarcastically, then remembered he had a gun in face and shut up again.

As it turned out, he didn’t have much time to worry about it, because very suddenly he was flat on the ground with a weight on top of him and the air was filled with gunshots. A bolt of pain ran through his shoulder where he hit the pavement, but at least his arm had still been up so his head hit that instead of connecting with the sidewalk. His head rang with the noise, though, and the gunshots weren’t stopping. Considering the noise was punctuated with the familiar shing of Diego’s knives, he guessed the weight that had tackled him out of the path of gunfire was Patch, protecting the hapless civilian.

The weight was gone quickly and Patch was dragging him into cover by his shoulder that hadn’t hit the pavement. The closest cover was the now abandoned alley that the gunmen had been hiding in, which had a few empty boxes, trash cans, and a dumpster a bit further down. Patch had pulled him behind some of the boxes and was using the cover to take shots at the gunmen. He glanced out from behind the safety of the boxes to try and get an idea what happened. He didn’t see where Diego had gotten to, but he didn’t see his dead body on the ground, so that was a good sign. There were two gunmen unconscious on the sidewalk now, and the remaining three were looking around wildly.

“Stay behind cover,” Patch whispered to him. Klaus nodded, ducking his head back behind the boxes and pressing himself against the dirty wall of a building to give Patch more room.

“Are you okay?” Ben asked, appearing beside him. Klaus jumped, and smiled in a way he hoped was not concerning at Patch when she gave him a questioning look. 

“I’m fine, where’s Diego?” he asked, directing the question at both Patch and Ben.

“I lost sight of him after I tackled you,” Patch answered. “He lashed out when the first gunman lost his temper with you.”

“I think he took cover on the other side of the building, but he can’t take all of those guys out with just knives,” Ben told him. 

The was another rain of gunfire from very close by and Klaus flinched. He watched Patch reach into her jacket for her radio and she started whispering urgent police codes into the thing. He didn’t think police would be much use, for awhile at least. Diego was the sole aim of three men with guns that were much scarier than the police had, right now.

Patch reached out from their cover and blasted off three shots. There was a shout from what Klaus hoped was one of the gunmen, and she quickly popped back into the cover. She motioned at him quickly, pointing at a dumpster a little bit further down the alley. “They might head over here,” she whispered, “Hide.”

Still in a crouch, Klaus scurried down the alley to do as she said. “Not the first time I’ve hid in a dirty alley,” he laughed quietly to himself, slightly hysterical and barely hearing himself over the gunfire. He pressed himself to the concerningly sticky side of the dumpster, trying not to panic.

“They can’t handle this on their own,” Ben said, appearing on the lid of the dumpster above him to state the obvious like some sort of unhelpful fairy godmother. “Who the fuck are these guys?”

“Friends of Five?” Klaus suggested. 

“Friends don’t try to kill friends’ siblings.”

“Depends on how good friends they are.”

The gunshots got louder, and ricocheted off of brick. “Fuck, they’re in the alley,” Ben shouted, a bit redundantly.

“Is detective lady okay?” 

“For now!”

“Where’s Five?”

“I don’t know, I lost track of him.”

Klaus poked his head out from behind the dumpster. Patch had moved to take cover behind some of the trash cans, and as he watched she popped out and shot one of the gunmen in the arm. While he stumbled back, she kicked him, and his gun went flying down the alley, landing between Klaus and the fight. Then she pulled back and rolled back under cover. The three remaining gunmen, one minus the gun, were approaching her, riddling the trash can with bullets.

There was the sound of running footsteps at the opening of the alley and suddenly one of the men was face down, Diego standing on his back. He’d gotten the jump on him, but wasn’t as stealthy as he could have been because the other gunman who still had his gun was ready for a surprise. Diego tried to dodge the shot, but was just a second too late. He fell back with a shout, landing on his ass and clutching at his shoulder.

Fuck. Diego was injured. He couldn’t tell how bad it was from here, he could just see blood and the obvious pain on his face. The one without a gun kicked the trash can away, removing Patch’s last option for cover and she had no choice but to raise her hands in surrender.

Klaus glanced at Ben. Wouldn’t it be super helpful if another one of the siblings that were both alive and had useful powers were here right now? Almost as if sensing what he was thinking, Ben said, “No one else is here right now, Klaus. You have to think of something to do.”

Fuck. Klaus jumped out from behind the dumpster, hands raised in a peace gesture. “Wait! I do have the information you want!”

“What the fuck?” Diego asked. He tried to struggle to his feet, clutching his shoulder, but the one that had just shot him growled and kept his gun pointed at him. “Klaus, _ run _ !”

One of the gunmen, the one Diego had pinned but was now back on his feet, narrowed his eyes at Klaus. “Now you want to do this the easy way?” Klaus frowned, thinking. This was the first gunman, the one Five had said was moral. Maybe he’d hesitate if he could play up the sympathy card?

Klaus nodded. “Yes, I’m sorry. Don’t hurt my brother any more. I’ll tell you what you want to know, just take me and leave them alone. You don’t have to hurt them.”

There was a tense second where nobody moved. Then, finally, the first gunman’s face softened and he slightly lowered his gun. He nodded to the other two, then walked towards Klaus. The one who still had his gun moved to hold his gun on Patch, while the other one harshly lifted Diego by his shoulder that wasn’t bleeding and shoved him in Patch’s direction.

“Do we know you have the information, or is he just lying so we don’t kill his friends?” the one without a gun asked.

“I know what you’re looking for!” Klaus said quickly. “You wanted to know where Number Five is and what he was up to, right? I know exactly what his plan was!”

Klaus couldn’t help but glance at Diego as he said this. His brother’s head jerked up and he stared at him with wide eyes. Then Klaus looked back at the gunman, who nodded slowly. “Okay.”

“Should we bring in the others anyway, to make sure he keeps his promise?” the gunless man asked again.

“No, no, you can’t do that!” Klaus insisted. He put on as sad a face as he could manage. “Come on, you can’t make me lose _ another _ brother! I won’t put up a fight, just take me to your spooky leader and I’ll give up all the facts.”

That did it. The sympathetic gunman actually lowered his gun completely and turned, nodding at his compatriots. “Turn em loose.” The other two nodded, shoving Diego and Patch harsly down the alley onto the street and turning their backs on the scene.

The instant the first gunman turned back, Klaus slammed into him with the most powerful headbutt he could manage. The gunman reared back in surprise, stumbling and tripping over his friend’s lost gun. Before he could recover, Klaus rolled, picking up said gun and firing at the guys beside Diego and Patch. He wasn’t the best at aiming and this gun was much stronger than he expected, but one of his shots landed at least. Non-lethally, though the one with the remaining gun stumbled. The other, Diego took out with a swift kick and stab with his good arm. 

The man on the ground groaned and tried to shove himself to his feet. Before Klaus could decide what to do, Patch fired one more shot into the man’s back, and he collapsed again.

Another shot, this one from the gunman Klaus had just shot, flew over his head. He couldn’t help a small yelp and he ducked, dropping the gun he’d taken.

Then, of all surprises, the last gunman was tackled to the ground with a scream of pain and surprise. There was a yellow dog on his back, barking and digging its claws into his back. Luckily for the man, his head hit the ground hard and he stopped moving, so the dog hopped off of him pretty quickly. Five jogged into the alley to catch up with the dog, and it sat by his side and looked up at him with a big doggy smile. It was clearly the one from across the street; it must’ve chewed through its leash to come help.

There were a few, long, long seconds of silence, punctuated only by the harsh breathing of Klaus, Diego, and Patch. Finally, Klaus decided to break the stunned silence with a burst of laughter.

“Woah, I was just looking to waste some time, I wasn’t expecting that,” he laughed, flopping to the dirty alley floor and trying to catch his breath. “That’s not my usual brand of chaos, ya know. Thank dad for me even knowing how to use a gun, by the way.”

“This is going to be some paperwork,” Patch sighed, in almost a whisper. “And probably some court days. This was all in self-defense, though. Diego, I called for backup and they’re sending an ambulance, can I convince you to stay-”

“Absolutely not.” Diego winced as he pulled his bloodied hand away from his shoulder to look at his own wound. He frowned, covered it with his hand again, and stumbled towards Klaus.

Patch followed him, crossing her arms. “I actually wasn’t asking permission, that’s some wound. Which you wouldn’t have gotten if you hadn’t escalated the situation and let the cop handle it, by the way.”

“They were waving guns in my brother’s face,” Diego gestured at Klaus. Then he fixed him with a glare. “And I guess they had a reason for it, beyond the fact he was being annoying. Klaus, what the fuck is happening?”

Aw, fuck. Of course he wasn’t just going to let that go. Klaus sighed. “I don’t know any more than you, man! Gun-waving lunatics showed up and demanded information!”

“And you knew what they wanted,” Diego dropped to his knees so he could grab the front of Klaus’s shirt with his good hand. “Klaus, we almost died, I swear to god. Tell me what you’ve gotten yourself into and what it has to do with  _ Five _ of all people.” 

Great. Klaus was super looking forward to having the ‘Five is dead’ talk with another one of his siblings today. He was too sober for this. “It’s a… long story. Can you stop bleeding out first?” He frowned at Diego’s wound. Now that he was closer he could see the amount of blood soaking into his brother’s black clothing and it was far too much.

Patch put a gentle hand Diego’s other shoulder and pulled him to his feet. He stumbled a bit before righting himself. “Diego, jesus- that looks bad. Look, it’ll just be a minute until the backup arrives with the ambulance, come sit on the street.”

Klaus pushed himself to his feet too, feeling a wave of concern as Diego swayed slightly. “Hey, hey, if you won’t stay for the ambulance how about we go back to the Academy? Mom can fix you up.”

Patch frowned, “I don’t-”

“Mom’s fixed worse than bullet wounds,” Klaus assured her.

“I was going to say I don’t trust you guys going back to the Academy on your own. There could be more of those guys out there, I was going to set you guys up with a police escort.”

Great, police following him around. That was probably the last thing he needed right now, with Five breathing down his neck to do apocalypse things.

“Fuck, I’ll keep in contact with them over the phone and go with you guys. They’ll get over it if I’m not at the scene,” Patch pulled Diego’s good arm over her shoulder and started walking him out of the alley. To be fair, it was probably good she was coming with, since neither Diego or Klaus could drive right now.

As the trio left the alley, Five fell into step beside Klaus. As he did, the dog started following him.

“You left some of them alive,” Five reprimanded. “Some are only unconscious. They’ll probably send more after you, since they know who they’re looking for now.”

Klaus lowered his voice and fell back, so Diego and Patch couldn’t hear him over their own whispered conversation. “If you could please give me some clear and useful information, why would they be looking for me?”

Five, of all surprises, smiled. “Because the timeline’s changing. You’re stirring things up, so they’re trying to stop you. They must’ve come looking for me through the tracker to see if I’m actually dead because the timeline’s changing.”

Klaus blinked. “Tracker?” He very suddenly remembered. With a little jog, he caught back up with Patch. “Hey, detective? Can I see that little machine now? You know, just because of all that’s happened?”

The detective stopped, clearly thinking about it. Then she reached into her pocket and produced the little blinking machine in a ziploc, handing it to Klaus. Without hesitation, he threw it on the ground and stomped on it, feeling the crack beneath his foot.

“What the fuck?” Diego asked.

“Let’s go,” Klaus put his hands on Patch’s and Diego’s backs each and pushed them forwards. “Diego is getting closer and closer to death by the second, lads!”

There was a short moment of silence as the two of them decided whether to demand explanation about this, but instead Diego asked, “Is… is that dog coming with us?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alternate name of this chapter: Five steals a dog. Five deserves a dog, guys. Also Patch deserves to be alive and to save the day  
> i'm never sure if i'm writing action well. or if it even makes sense
> 
> i'm still dealing with moving, but i took some time to write another chapter because 1) i wanted to and 2) i didn't want you guys to have to wait too long. next chapter i think i'm going to go over how much power Five actually has as a ghost and stuff cause i havent' established that well yet
> 
> I hope you enjoyed, i read appreciate comments <3  
> find me on tumblr unluckyrose.tumblr.com


	6. The 'Fun' in 'Infirmary'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five procrastinates coming to terms with his horrible mental state

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is no 'fun' in 'infirmary'

Whether they wanted to take the dog or not, it made that choice itself by leaping into the car as soon as the door was open. Five slipped into the backseat beside the dog, which laid down as soon as he was settled. While the living occupants bickered and got into their respective seats without agitating their wounds, Ben squished himself between seats and faced Five. The smaller ghost continued watching the dog for a minute, lost in thought. Ben clearly had something on his mind, but that was up to him to voice.

“Are you good?” Ben asked, finally.

Five looked up in surprise. He'd been expecting 'what the hell was that, Five?’ or other questions about the chaos that had just happened. “I am… fine? Why wouldn't I be?”

“You look distracted.” Ben shook his head. “How'd you get the dog to come help?”

Five glanced back down at the dog. It looked back at him. It was strange that this dog could see him. He hadn't been dead for long, and most of that time had been spent with Klaus and Ben, but he was already used to everyone looking through him. He hated it, the way even when someone was looking right at him their eyes focused on a spot behind him. When he was standing right there and saw people looking right past him, he couldn’t help the bolt of dread that ran through him. He knew no one could hear him too, no matter what he said or how loudly. It made him feel unreal, and in a way he was. He wasn’t really here. When he’d joined up with the Commission, everything had been so loud at first because he was so unused to people being around to notice him, but in a way he’d relished in it. It had reminded him he wasn’t stuck in the apocalypse anymore. But now, when he stood in front of his other siblings and they looked right through, acting as if he wasn’t there, he couldn’t help this nagging feeling that he had never left the apocalypse. That he was all alone again, that there had never actually been any hope at all.

He shook his head to dismiss the thought. No, he was here. He had a goal. He had the apocalypse to worry about, and he had to think about how to protect Klaus from the Commission. There wasn't time to think about or get lost in his panic about his untimely demise.

“The dog wanted to help,” he answered Ben, shrugging. It had started barking the second the assassins had appeared. “I couldn’t kill those guys myself, so I went over and showed the dog the weak spot in its leash.”

That made him sound much cooler and more collected than he’d actually been. In reality, he’d panicked as soon as bullets started flying, knowing he couldn’t do a damn thing. He’d ran around Diego, trying to shout warnings uselessly and failing to push him out of the way of attacks. He’d only gotten control of himself when he focused on the barking, drowning out the gunshots and urging him over to one of the only creatures that could acknowledge his existence. As soon as he’d  gotten close to the dog, he saw the leash was starting to break, so he pointed at the breaking point to get the dog’s attention. It had chewed its way free and run to help on its own.

But, well, ‘I panicked and dog saved the day itself’ didn’t make him sound as ‘Fine’ as he’d just claimed to be.

Ben nodded, then was quiet for a moment. In the background, Klaus, Diego, and Patch were bickering about something, but Five ignored them. It was horrifyingly easy to drown out the sounds of a life you’re not part of. 

“Five, what did you get yourself into?” Ben asked.

Ah, there it is. “Well, that’s a long story,” he smiled insincerely, “a story that’s over now, considering it already killed me.”

Ben’s frown somehow deepend even more, and his eyes shone with pity. Five looked away, back at the dog. He also didn’t have time for people to feel bad for him, there was plenty of time for that after the apocalypse was dealt with.

“It’s not over though,” Ben said. “Five?” Five looked back at him. He looked serious. “People are coming after you. That’s not  _ over _ . They’re trying to find you, but they won’t, so instead they’ll find Klaus. We have to know what danger Klaus is in, Five, it isn’t just your business anymore.”

“Obviously I didn’t mean to put him in danger,” Five snapped, “I didn’t think they’d come after me, since I’m  _ dead _ !” 

Ben crossed his arms. “I’m not saying it’s on purpose, I’m saying you can’t keep these things from us if it’s putting our family in danger.”

He was right, but god Five didn’t want to think about it. The thought of wasting time sitting around explaining to everyone about the Commission and all that he’d been through was frustrating and exhausting. It had been hard enough just trying to explain that the apocalypse was coming soon, and worst of all he didn’t want to have to deal with speaking through Klaus to the rest of the family if that became necessary. He already knew none of the rest of the family could help; they’d already tried and ended up dead. It wasn’t like he could make much of a difference this time around, when he could only affect the world around him through Klaus and a fucking dog.

He just wanted to focus on the apocalypse, but everything keeps getting sidetracked. Every plan he could conjure in his mind had to be thrown out immediately simply because he just couldn’t touch anything. He couldn’t write out equations or a probability map because he couldn’t touch anything, he couldn’t talk to anyone but Ben and Klaus, he couldn’t go far from Klaus, he couldn’t do anything. He didn’t even know if he could teleport. He could disappear and reappear like any ghost, but he hadn’t tried tapping into his own powers. They were disconnected from him as his body. Even if he could, he had to consider his own body weight and the speed he was going when he was jumping, through time or through space, and he didn’t have either anymore. He didn’t have any of the abilities that had gotten him through his 58 long years of life. The hope for the world was tied to his junkie brother.

Well, that wasn’t totally fair. Klaus had been trying, and so far he hadn’t done anything but help. Except that time he wasted on the first night, but, well. Five had to work with what he had, and he just had to remember that if the Commission was here it was because they were on the right path.

“I’ll explain it all later,” Five promised Ben. He imagined Dolores reprimanding him for putting it off, like he was procrastinating everything else that wasn’t the apocalypse. Well, Dolores wasn’t here, so she didn’t have a say.

“Explain it before our siblings almost die again,” Ben said, sternly.

“You can’t give me orders, I’m not a child,” Five snapped.

Ben glared. “Then don’t act like one. I don’t care how complicated your backstory is, obviously something happened while you were in the future and it’s coming to bite you in the ass now and you can’t run from it and make Klaus deal with it.”

Klaus’ arm suddenly spread over the back of the seat where Five was sitting, pulling both ghosts’ attention to him. He wasn’t looking at them, instead keeping his eyes on Patch and Diego, but he whispered out of the side of his mouth, “Thanks for all the love and concern, Ben, but can you two keep it the fuck down? You’re drowning out the wonderful tension-filled blather from our dying brother and his not-girlfriend.”

Five took the chance to escape the conversation and shut his mouth, turning fully to face the dog. It looked up at him and smiled, panting and drooling a little on the seat. Suddenly, it occurred to Five that he’d never checked this dog for a collar. It might be important to see if it had any identification tags, considering they’d accidentally kidnapped it and all. He couldn’t exactly keep the dog’s head still or move its long fur to see better, but it did appear to have a cheap collar. There wasn’t an obvious glint of metal on the collar though, from what he could see. It might just exist for the purposes of the leash and not tags.

The car came to a stop and the dog looked up. Five also looked up a second later to see Patch helping Diego out of his seatbeat as the living people exited the car. Not willing to be stuck alone with Ben after their conversation, Five quickly climbed out of the car when Klaus did. And of course, the dog followed Five.

Klaus ran ahead into the house while Patch slowly helped Diego to the door. From here, Five could hear Klaus burst into the academy shouting, “Mom! We’ve got a bleeding brother over here!”

Once everyone was inside, Klaus led the way to the infirmary and Patch set Diego onto one of the beds. The infirmary had six beds, but all but one was pushed against the wall, ready in case multiple children were injured. The cabinets were all still full of any medical supplies the family could ever need, though some were ajar and had obviously been rifled through recently. There were a few chairs set around the room, available for sitting beside the injured person even though the kids had rarely been allowed to just sit around while one of them was injured. The room looked just like it had when they were young, and obviously hadn’t been used in a long time. Mom had kept everything clean and ready, even though everyone who would have needed it was gone. Five ignored the automatic pang of sympathy for his mother, alone in this house for long with no one to take care of, never doing anything but waiting for when she was needed again.

The first person to come investigate the commotion was Allison, who appeared in the doorway. “Hey Klaus, I thought I heard you in here. Vanya came by looking for you-” She stopped when she took in the scene. “Guys, what’s going on- is that a dog?”

The dog was sitting politely next to Five. It was very well behaved, actually. Five wished he could pet it to show his approval of its calmness.

“Oh, that’s just a friend,” Klaus told her, “What did dear Van want?”

“Um, she said you’d dropped by earlier and she needed to talk to you. I told her I’d tell her if you came by but then we kind of… had a fight, so- Is Diego okay?” She looked over Klaus’s shoulder at where Diego was bleeding all over the infirmary bed.

Klaus clapped, as if he’d just remembered. “Oh yeah! Where’s Mom? Diego’s dying.”

“Dying?” Allison asked, alarmed.

“I’m not dying,” Diego interjected. “But we do need Mom.”

Allison stepped back. “I’ll- I’ll go find her. Um, hi?” she waved awkwardly at Patch, probably only then realizing there was a stranger in the room. Patch waved back with the hand that wasn’t holding a cloth to Diego’s wound.

After Allison was gone, Klaus flopped down into one of the chairs in the room, one leg over the arm of the chair and resting in the chair next to it, which Ben was sitting in. Ben himself was being rather quiet, sitting on the far end of the infirmary from where Five was standing and throwing occasional glances his way.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve been here, ey brother?” Klaus asked Diego, “All those missions that ended in blood and bullet wounds. Good ol, terrible, awful old days.”

“Days that are now over,” Patch reminded them, “Yet you seem to think that running around in masks and tricking bank robbers when you were kids means that you don’t have to listen to the actual cop during a firefight. You have training, but you’re not kids anymore and you don’t have your whole team behind you, escalating the situation was stupid and it could’ve ended a lot worse.”

Diego groaned, shifting his shoulder. “I’m fine and we’re alive. And more importantly, we know why we were attacked, or at least one of us does.” He glared over at Klaus. “You ever going to explain that, Klaus?”

Patch glanced up at Klaus too, and he faltered a little under their gazes, smile falling. He looked over to Five, who had no idea what help he could even provide. Klaus was the one who spilled that he knew what was happening in front of them. Though, Five had to admit it had worked.

Luckily, Klaus was saved from having explain right then by Allison, Grace, and Pogo appearing in the doorway. “Something’s wrong with Mom,” Allison announced immediately, worry in her voice. Everyone in the room’s heads snapped towards her. She was holding Mom by the arm, gently directing her into the room, but the robot still had the slightly confused air about her and looked as if she didn’t exactly know where she was.

Pogo calmly entered after the two women, nodding as Allison pulled Mom over into a chair. “It looks as if Grace’s recent issues with her programming have spread to her ability to perform first-aid. She does not seem to recognize that Master Diego needs her help no matter how we explain it to her.”

Diego had bolted upright and was trying to stand, but Patch held him back. “Issues with her programming? What the fuck happened? Is she okay?”

“Master Diego, your mother will be fine, but right now it looks as though  _ you _ are bleeding out all over the floor,” Pogo slowly ambled across the infirmary over to where Diego sat. “I can help with a bullet wound, lord knows I’ve acted as nurse to Grace enough in the past. Sit down and let me help, and then we can talk.”

Pogo spoke sternly, and Diego crumpled. Mom did seem fine for now, even though she was staring at the ceiling with a hollow smile and talking softly and cheerfully to Allison about plans for dinner while her son was bleeding in front of her. Once Pogo went about getting out bandages and such, and Patch was whispering, “I’m sorry, Diego, is your mom a  _ robot _ ?”, Five decided to leave them to it and go investigate Mom for himself.

“Mom, do you know how long you’ve been malfunctioning like this? Did Dad mention it all?” Allison asked gently, hand still on her mother’s arm. 

Grace smiled at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear. Your father kept all my hardware up to date, he was a very smart man and took good care of me.”

Allison frowned. “How often did he check on your hardware?”

Grace tilted her head in confusion and just kept smiling, not answering. If something was wrong with her, then that explained her confusion the day before. Five opened his mouth to ask Allison just how long Grace had lived alone with no one but Reignald and Pogo, then stopped just before the words could leave his mouth. She wouldn’t be able to answer. 

He’d been too upset yesterday upon realizing he was dead and too distracted trying to get Klaus out the door that morning, so he hadn’t stopped to think about Grace or how she’d felt after the Umbrella Academy was over. His mother looked exactly the same as she had the day he’d left, cheerful smile, 50’s style clothing, and a kind gaze. He felt a pang of loss for his mother whose child had left her alone. If he’d been here, would he have left her and gone on with his life like his siblings had? He couldn’t say he wouldn’t have. But he knew how horrible it was to be alone, now, separated from your family. At least he’d had a purpose. He didn’t think he could survive without a goal to focus on.

Well, he wasn’t exactly surviving right now, was he.

Maybe later, he could ask Klaus to get updates on Mom, see if she was improving.

Suddenly, a form was blocking the entire doorway.

“What are you guys doing in here?” Luther asked, taking in the scene. “...is that a dog?”

“Diego got shot, the dog is a friend, Diego brought a cop,” Klaus pointed at Diego, the dog, and Patch as he explained each thing. Most of the blood was cleaned up by now and Pogo was working on helping Diego wrap bandages around his shoulder and arm. 

Luther stepped into the room, squaring his shoulders in the way that meant he was trying to take control. He was so big now that it was like he took up the whole room, not in an impressive way but in a ‘you stupid dog, you’re not a lapdog anymore’ way. He probably thought it was in an impressive way. “What happened?”

“None of your business,” Diego said, straightening up and wincing as his shoulder moved. “Eudora, do you have any updates on the crime scene? You haven’t checked your phone-”

“Don’t call me that,” Patch reminded him, “But I’ll call them right now. Seems like you guys need to have a family chat.” The detective stood, pulling out her phone and nodding at Luther before leaving. Obviously she sensed the fight coming, even without knowing this family, and knew it was best to get out of the way. Smart woman.

“What was this, more of your vigilante work?” Luther motioned at Diego’s shoulder. “And you can’t just bring people here unannounced.”

Diego glared and stood, holding onto the bed as he swayed a little. “My ‘vigilante work’ is important, more important than whatever it is you do, and Patch can go where she wants.” 

“To be fair, you didn’t willingly bring her,” Klaus added, unhelpfully, “We’re being babysat.”

“Babysat? What does that mean?” Luther asked.

Allison looked up. “Are you guys in custody or something?”

Klaus sighed wistfully. “Being arrested would be way easier, wouldn’t it. Could just escape or pay bail.”

Diego directed his glare at Klaus for a split second before turning back to Luther. “It’s not important. Once Pogo says I can go and we see what’s up with Mom, Klaus, Patch, and I will be on our way.”

“Klaus?” Luther glanced over at Klaus, who waved lazily at him. “Did you get Klaus involved in your vigilante stuff? He can’t do this stuff, Diego.”

“Wow, I’m right here,” Klaus defended, “I could get shot if I wanted!”

“Klaus got himself involved.”

Their voices were raising, and Five wished he could tell them to shut up. Why couldn’t Diego just tell him to fuck off, or at least half explain so they could go? Some things never changed, it was like those two never wasted an opportunity to disagree. He zoned out of the argument after a minute, deeming it and unimportant Diego-and-Luther-ism. 

The ghost slipped around the two and over to Klaus. Klaus had stood and was scanning the cabinet of the infirmary while Pogo was distracted trying to interject into the argument.

“Klaus, it’s getting late. The sun’s down, we have to go to MeriTech,” Five reminded him.

“Yeah, sure, just let me grab something before we go,” Klaus pulled open one cabinet and pushed aside stacks of pill bottles.

“You already raided this place,” Ben, who stood on his other side, reminded him.

“Maybe I can find the key to the cabinet of goodies,” Klaus muttered. “I don’t know where the key is but one of the locked cabinets  _ has _ to have some good stuff.”

“Drugs? Damn it,” Five rolled his eyes, though he doesn’t know why he didn’t expect this, “Klaus, this is the perfect opportunity to sneak out! Patch is busy and Diego’s distracted. If we stay here any longer Diego’s going to make you explain what you said about me to the assassins, and you won’t be able to slip away from Patch!”

“Give me a break! I’ve gone, like, an entire day with nothing, I’m shaking here,” Klaus defended. 

“Klaus, he’s right,” Ben added, “We’ve gotta go now if we want to avoid the police.”

“You said you wanted to help me stop the apocalypse,” Five reminded him.

“Jesus! Fine!” Klaus spun on his heel, heading towards the door. Despite his out loud conversation with thin air, everyone in the room was still far too distracted to notice him. Allison was distracted with Diego and Luther, who were still arguing and ignoring Pogo, who had sighed and started putting the medical supplies back. The only one who noticed them all heading toward the exit was the dog, who stood and trotted over after them.

“We can’t really bring the dog, can we,” Ben pointed out as it fell into place beside Five. Five looked down at the dog, who smiled up at him with its tongue lolling out.

“I think that’s just your dog now,” Klaus added, coming to a halt right next to the door. “Tell him to stay.”

“What?” 

“Tell him to stay! He’s your dog, and we can’t take him to MeriTech.”

“It’s not my dog, I just met it!” He didn’t even understand why the dog was still following him, since the danger had long passed. Didn’t it have an owner somewhere?

“The dog doesn’t think so,”

The dog tilted its head, wondering why they’d stopped walking again. Five turned, trying to remember if he’d ever trained a dog before. They weren’t allowed to have pets when they were younger, and there was nothing alive in the apocalypse besides him. Maybe this dog was already trained?

“Okay. Dog,” he said, feeling incredibly foolish and wishing Klaus and Ben weren’t staring at him, “You. Have to stay here. A dog would make a break-in very complicated. But, I will be back, eventually.”

The dog tilted its head again, uncomprehending.

“It doesn’t know English, genius,” Klaus said.

“I know that!” Five snapped. He kneeled down in front of the dog. “Dog, stay. Here. In this house. Stay.” Then he stood, and walked a few feet back. The dog stood to follow him, but he held out his hand to signal ‘stop’. “No, stop. Stay.”

The dog sat, and didn’t follow him when he stepped back again. Five nodded in approval. “I will be back,” he promised. He hadn’t actually planned on coming back to the academy unless it was necessary, he didn’t know what this break-in would turn up, but now he found he was certain he would have to come back for this dog. Dammit. He turned back to Klaus and Ben. “Let’s go, we have more important things to do.”

Klaus spun around and waltzed through the door. Patch was on the phone in the hallway outside, standing on the far side away from the room so she could hear the person on the other end over the shouting. Klaus easily stepped behind her and down the stairs to leave the academy without her noticing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i meant to get to more in this chapter but it got surprisingly long so i cut it off. five's inner monologue just had a lot to say about being dead. also everybody is very stubborn about just sitting down and explaining what the hell is going on and Ben is Sick of It. and to think, that silly boy was just talking about how he didn't believe five.
> 
> i'm still dealing with the chaos of moving. Thanks for all your comments, they make my day, every single one of em <33  
> hope you enjoyed this chapter, find me at unluckyrose.tumblr.com


	7. Breaking and Entering for Idiots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> do crimes!

The streets around the MeriTech lab were completely deserted, which was rather convenient.  What was less convenient was the lack of unlocked doors or windows that Klaus could find within the first minute of searching.

“Do you know how to pick locks?” Five asked, crossing his arms and leaning against a smaller back door they’d found.

“You know, I always meant to learn, but it turns out picking locks is hard,” Klaus said. He jiggled the doorknob, to no avail. “Damn, I was really hoping trying it a second time would make it not locked,” he joked, under his breath.

“Be serious,” Five chided. He turned and examined the lock. Klaus didn’t think the ghost could actually see anything in the dark, but didn’t bother pointing it out. “I never bothered with learning how to pick locks, actually. I used to just be able to teleport into places.”

“I have a surefire method to get into buildings that doesn’t require lockpicks or teleportation, dear brother,” Klaus said. He stepped back away from the door and looked around the space between buildings where they stood. It wasn’t even really an alley, just a smaller street that didn’t have anything useful like garbage cans. However, he did see what looked like a hefty pot full of dirt, probably once containing a plant of some sort. It was decently heavy, but light enough that he could lift it with both hands. Then he spun, and let go.

The pot flew through the nearest window, smashing through it and sending shattered glass and dirt over the ground.

“...That’s not subtle,” Five said, widening his eyes in comic surprise. “There might be alarms, idiot!”

“Hey, I know what I’m doing,” Klaus lied. This place looked really fancy and modern, actually, so he didn’t know if there were alarms or not. He probably should have thought of that before smashing the window. Well, he didn’t  _ hear _ any alarms, and it was too late now.

After carefully making sure he wasn’t setting his hand on broken glass, he hefted himself through the window and into the building. It was dark and silent inside, and he could only barely make out the shapes of the furniture using the light from the streetlights outside. He felt along the wall until he found the light switch and flicked it on, revealing some sort of office.

Ben appeared beside him. “What are we looking for, exactly?” he asked. “Just, a list of everyone who got a prosthetic eye from here?”

Klaus glanced over at Five, who was scanning the office. “ _ Is  _ that what we’re here for?”

Five shrugged. “Something like that, I hope. I don’t have the eye so I’ll need to look at a list to recognize the serial number.”

“Would something like that be in an office or in the lab?” Ben asked.

“It depends on if they have physical books or if they have it all on computers.”

“It’s time for a good ol game of ‘search the empty building before someone calls the cops’!” Klaus announced, clapping once. Ben and Five both winced at his volume, which he did regret a little because they  _ were _ breaking an entering. Or, well, he was breaking and entering. Ben and Five weren’t technically here. “One of you should keep watch, though. And maybe peek in rooms before I break in to make sure they’re not just like, bathrooms.”

Over the next ten minutes, they fell into a pattern. Five slid through walls and doors and tried to determine which rooms were completely useless to them. Most were offices of individuals that probably didn’t keep the books themselves, some were break rooms, and some were other boring things. Klaus would look through rooms that Five thought might be important, since he could actually pick things up, and searched rooms with unlocked doors. Ben vanished and reappeared several times, investigating strange noises and checking hallways to make sure no one was coming.

After what seemed like an eternity of searching (or maybe like an hour? Klaus was really bored), Five shouted from a room ahead, “Klaus, get in here!”

The room was another open one, filled with counters and tables of papers and what looked like a lot of boxes, though he couldn’t see a lot in the dark. The walls were mostly windows out into the other rooms, covered by vertical blinds, but Ben looked around and said no one was around to see if they turned the light on. Once he did, Klaus saw Five was leaning over a box filled with creepy glass eyes.

“Well, looks like we found the ‘lab’ part of this lab. This building is waaay too big,” Klaus walked around to the other side of the counter from Five and leaned over to look at the eyes too. “Did you see something that looks like the book?”

“Yes, Maybe,” Five said, distractedly. He looked away from the eyes and pointed at a pile of paperwork.  “Flip through these so I can see them? They look like they correspond to these eyes here.” 

Klaus walked around the counter to the stack of paper. He held out the paper for Five to read, not bothering to read it himself, and as he flipped through them Five’s frown grew deeper. “There aren’t any customers listed here. These are notes of billing, but the eyes are still here and they didn’t go to anyone. Who’s paying for them?”

Klaus flipped through the papers again, reading them himself. “Not a clue.” They looked like official forms, but had some handwriting on them. “Hey, look at some of these notes. Those are the names of health insurance companies.”

Ben walked over to glance over his shoulder. “Did the insurance companies pay for them?”

“Did they what, pay to have them go to no one?” Klaus asked, waving a hand at the eyes in the box.

Five sighed and rubbed his eyes, as if fighting exhaustion. “MeriTech is probably running an insurance scam.”

“That’s...neat?” Klaus leaned against the counter. “But what does it have to do with your eye thing?”

“They might be selling these prosthetics illegally, and thus probably don’t have a record of the actual owner of the eye,” Five explained. “This is another fucking dead end, unless we can search this entire building top-to-bottom for information that probably doesn’t exist. We aren’t going to be able to find the owner of the eye this way.”

“Oh. Fuck.” Klaus pushed off the counter to stand next to Five, who was glaring at the papers as if they were to blame for the apocalypse. “We can keep searching?”

“It’s pointless,” Five sighed. He whipped around and disappeared through the wall. “Let’s get out of here.”

Klaus and Ben exchanged glances, then followed him. Well, Klaus followed him by walking through the door and then going around back the way they came, he didn’t walk through the wall like Five had. The three of them retraced the way they came, through hallways and staircases, heading back to the first floor office they had broken into.

No one spoke, and Klaus’s footsteps echoed eerily in the empty building. The silence was wearing on him and it felt a bit like the world was spinning. He was starting to feel sicker and it was very hard to ignore without constant chatter or a goal besides B&E. He glanced at Five out of the corner of his eye. His littler brother was staring down at his own hands again, glaring like he could melt them. He was probably trying to conjure something again. Klaus was absolutely no help there; He had no idea how Ben could conjure the memory of books and small things like that. He’d just never asked. The idea of learning anything at all about his powers was something he avoided like the plague on a good day.

Speaking of his powers, as they slipped by the empty lobby of the building, he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. He jumped, startled and afraid it was a witness or something, but he quickly realized it was a ghost. It was a man in period clothing. He had chainmail and shit on. An actual medieval- looking motherfucker, standing in the lobby of a modern prosthetics lab. Klaus bit down a slightly hysterical giggle at the weird sight, then continued on his way, ignoring the ghost as he usually did. 

“Let’s get out of here guys, I need a fucking hit.” He glanced over his shoulder as he walked, only to stop when he realized the two ghosts that were supposed to be there weren’t following. Five had stopped dead and was staring at the third ghost, jaw open. His face was an expression of horror that looked strangely out of character for him. Ben had stopped as well, not looking at the ghost but instead watching Five curiously. Klaus wasn’t sure what could be so shocking about this ghost in particular; it wasn’t even too gorey, especially compared to shit he usually saw. It wasn’t even disemboweled in any way! The only visible wound was a bullethole on its forehead, slowly dripping blood down its face.

Klaus waved a hand in front of Five’s face, earning a glare. “It’s just a ghost, man, they happen. Circle of life!”

“Why is he here?” Five asked, suddenly focused on Klaus and not looking at the ghost at all. 

“Here specifically? How the hell should I know. Why can we see him?  _ Someone _ wouldn’t let me commence with my regular activities today,” he pointed at Five mock accusingly.

“He’s too sober to block out other ghosts,” Ben explained more clearly. He was staring at the stranger ghost now too, frowning thoughtfully. “Kinda weird, isn’t he? Why’s he got a bullet wound?”

Klaus pretended to think very hard about it. “I’m not an expert on these things, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the leading cause of bullets is: gun.”

Ben raised an eyebrow, obviously pretending to be unamused at Klaus’s hilarious smartassery. “I don’t think medieval time knights had to worry about guns as much as we do.”

“Go ask him yourself if you’re so curious about it,” Klaus turned on his heel. “I’m gonna get out of here before I get arrested.”

“Too late for that,” Five said. 

The front doors to the building opened and suddenly a flashlight was shining directly into Klaus’s eyes, blinding him. “Freeze!” a policeman called out, running across the lobby towards him.

“You were supposed to be keeping a lookout!” Klaus hissed over his shoulder at Ben.

“I was distracted!” 

Klaus raised both his hands as the policeman approached, smiling in a way that he hoped made him seem clueless and innocent. Well, no, it was too late for innocent. Like a clueless guy who had no particular reason for breaking into this building.

The flashlight moved so it wasn't shining in his face anymore and he could see the policeman. Looked like just one guy. Klaus didn't know what Five was so worried about, turns out this place has the worst security, no one even cares once someone has actually broken in. 

The cop looked Klaus over, eyes pausing on the raised palms of his hands. Klaus raised his eyebrows. Maybe this one knew him too. 

“...Hi?” Klaus said, when the cop had been silent for too long.

The cop narrowed his eyes. “You're breaking and entering, don't 'hi?’ me. Are you Klaus Hargreeves?”

“No,” Klaus lied. The cop didn't seem to buy it, since he rolled his eyes and glanced at Klaus’s hands again. Oh, right, his tattoos. Those were a bit recognizable.

“Hands behind your back,” the cop said.

“Aw come on, do you really have to cuff me?” Klaus sighed. Still he did as he was told, ignoring Five's glare as turned and faced the ghosts.

Clearly, despite the fact this cop obviously didn't like him, he didn't think he was much of a threat. He knew because this cop was taking his sweet time getting out the cuffs, first deciding to pull out his radio. Klaus heard him say, “Detective Patch? I think I found your guy. Hand tattoos. Found him breaking and entering in a lab- MeriTech. I'm taking him down to the station.”

Oh, so Patch was already looking for him. Great, he’d get stuck in a holding cell until Patch showed up and she and his family forced him to explain everything that was happening. Not to mention Five would be bitchy about it the entire time, ‘Klaus I told you not to get arrested’, ‘Klaus you’re explaining it wrong’, ‘Klaus we don’t have time for this’. Ugh.

“Hey guys, there aren’t any other cops around, are there?” he whispered to Ben and Five. They both vanished for just a second, then reappeared. 

“He’s here alone,” Ben said.

“Who are you talking to?” the cop asked, hesitating.

Klaus grinned and looked over his shoulder at the cop. “Oh, just my partners in crime.”

The cop stepped back, looking around the seemingly empty lobby. “There are others here? How many?”

Klaus’s grin grew wicked. “Oh, a lot more than you can see. Like that guy,” He pointed at the knight from before, who startled a little at being acknowledged. The cop squinted, obviously not seeing anything, but stepped away for a second to check. Klaus took advantage of this to spin around and bolt for the door.

“Hey! Freeze!” The cop shouted after him, but he was already gone. Klaus tilted his head back and laughed loudly, a sound that echoed around the empty lobby as he ran into the night.

  
  


The trio ended up wandering the streets in a part of town Five didn’t really recognize. He was a bit too lost in thought to worry about where they were going, trusting Klaus not to walk directly into more police. Well, trust wasn’t exactly the right word. Klaus could easily get in trouble but Five had decided to ignore that risk in exchange for burying himself in his own anxiety.

They’d been caught breaking in, which would make it near impossible to get in there again. Even if they could, they’d just decided it was basically impossible to find the owner of the eye that way. Maybe they could find out who was in charge and threaten them? Would Klaus even be able to pull that off? He wasn’t really the type to hold a gun to someone’s head and demand information. 

And that wasn’t even considering the fact that he would have to make Klaus kill someone eventually. If they found out who was responsible for the apocalypse, they would have to kill them to prevent it. Klaus wasn’t exactly someone who killed without a lot of provocation. 

He’s going in circles. Ever since he’d died his thoughts had just been going in pointless circles. All he could think about was dead ends and how impossible every option was. God, he wished he could drink. This was all so hopeless.

And the fucking ghost from earlier was still there.

“Why is it still here?” Five grumbled, trying not to look at it. The knight ghost wasn’t exactly following them so much as it just seemed to appear every time they turned a corner. It was always out of the corner of his eye, he could always feel it staring at him. Every time conversation died down the silence was filled with the jangle of metal armor shifting. Like no matter how much he tried to ignore it, the louder and more obvious it got.

“Well, we kept staring at him and then I pointed directly at him,” Klaus said casually, also doing his best not to look at the knight. “When ghosts realize I see them they don’t leave me alone. Just look at you two!”

“I tried my best to leave you alone, actually,” Five said. 

Klaus wiped a fake tear from his eye. “You’re so mean to me, what a terrible brother.”

Ben glanced over at the knight. “Usually they want something, right? He’s being weirdly quiet.”

“Gift horses, Ben.” Klaus shrugged. “Maybe he just wants to hang out and be creepy. Either way, I’m done with him and any of his friends that might be showing up soon.”

Five raised an eyebrow. “More ghosts are going to show up?”

“Always do. I hate being sober,” Klaus shuddered. “Let’s go fix that!”

Ben stopped. “Seriously? You just almost got  _ arrested _ .” 

Klaus didn’t stop, forcing Ben to keep walking after a moment. “Exactly! I did the job, now I deserve a reward! Also I feel like shit and I’m not doing anything else until I have  _ something _ .”

“It’s only been a day! You can’t even focus for one day?” Ben nagged. “We’ve got more important things to worry about! There are assassins, and the apocalypse, and whatever the hell’s going on that Five isn’t telling us. You can’t go pass out in a drain pipe after all this.”

“Whatever happened to all that doubt you had earlier, huh?” Klaus asked, bitterly. Five glanced between the two, not knowing what he meant. “You didn’t seem to think any of this was worth worrying about.”

Ben glared. “That was before you and Diego almost died in a firefight because of this apocalypse stuff. Something’s really happening here, Klaus.”

Klaus did stop now, turning to face Ben. “Something that I can figure out better without a bunch of ghosts breathing down my neck.”

Neither of them said anything else, just glaring at each other in an immature staring contest. Five watched them, mostly uninterested. Maybe an hour ago he’d be nagging Klaus too, saying they couldn’t waste any time, but… What lead did they even have to follow right now? Everything was a dead end. He was helpless, he couldn’t interact with the world or do anything to save it, and right now all he could think about was that  _ fucking _ knight.

Trying not to show the shiver he felt down his spine, he slowly turned his head. The knight was right there, standing just a few feet behind them. His cold, glassy eyes were focused directly on Five. The way they were glazed over with death didn’t hide the look of rage and confusion that filled them. He didn’t seem to blink, even as illusory blood dripped from the bullet wound in forehead down his face.

Five tore his eyes away, tensing up. Even though he’d stopped looking at the knight, he knew it was still looking at him.

“Oh, just let him,” Five snapped suddenly. Klaus and Ben both looked up at him in surprise. “If he wants to go get high off his ass for the night let him go, it’s not like there’s anything else to do tonight.”

Klaus clapped once. “Great! It’s two against one, so now you have to shut up, Ben. Let’s go!” And he turned to keep weaving down the dark streets. Five glanced back at Ben before following him, ignoring the disapproving and confused look on his brother’s face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i! hate this chapter. my mind absolutely didn't want me to write the first half of this  
> yes i took extreme liberties with meritech and their scam and all of that and i can only hope you forgive me.
> 
> poor ben, it's hard to be a good influence when you're looking after two depressed disasters
> 
> i'm still moving, we have run into a lot of complications and it's been just been STRESS for like, months now. just letting you know if there's a gap in updates soon it's probably just because of that  
> find me at unluckyrose.tumblr.com


	8. A Sleepover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison has a chat with her brothers' babysitter

“What are you doing?” Ben asked, appearing next to Five and making him jump, though he hid it. Five stepped back, quickly pulling his arm back and cradling it against his chest. 

“What else is there to do? I'm trying to see just how much I can do as a ghost.” That was a small lie, he had mostly been zoning out while staring at his hands and just hoping he could conjure the eye.

“That's what we spent last night doing,” Ben pointed out, crossing his arms. 

“Well, Klaus is high as a kite again and every idea for stopping the apocalypse is a dead end, so.” Five said, with a sarcastic smile.

Ben’s glare hardened, and Five realized he was over here to pry more into what was going on. Ben wasn’t dumb and clearly realized how bad things were, and wasn’t going to let it go until Five explained it. Five really didn’t want to explain it right now, if only because he didn’t want to think about the threat of the Commission and the possibility of Klaus and Ben refusing the help once they realized changing the timeline required murder. If only Five could just escape this conversation. 

Oh wait, he could. Five turned and walked away, putting his hands into the pockets of his too-big suit. 

“Five!” Ben shouted after him. “Where are you even trying to run away to? You can’t go anywhere!”

“Yonder,” Five said, throwing a smirk over his shoulder at him.

“Is ‘yonder’ two blocks in that direction?” Ben didn’t look impressed. “I can go further from Klaus than you can!”

Despite the threat, Ben didn’t follow him. Five disappeared and reappeared up on a ledge about two stories off the ground, letting his legs hang out in open air. From here, he had a nice view of the street. It was dark and deserted and not particularly interesting to look at, but it did leave him with his thought circles and away from Ben’s disapproving glare.

He was glad he could talk to Ben, he really was. It had been such a horrible sinking feeling, when he’d found Vanya’s book and realized why Ben’s body hadn’t been with the rest. He had accepted a long, long time ago that no matter what he did when he made his way back to his family, he wouldn’t ever see Ben again. It would be something to be very happy over, that he did actually get to see Ben again, if it weren’t for the fact it was only because he shared the same fate. Stuck here, watching his siblings fall to their fates without being able to do anything about it. How did Ben deal with feeling so helpless?

He glanced down, and saw Ben sitting on the sidewalk below. Klaus was… somewhere, nearby. He had to be close, because Five would feel if he was close to the limit of how far he could be. If only he could get further from Klaus. This would all be easier if he wasn't stuck here, watching as the date of the apocalypse gets closer and closer and he can't do anything. If he wasn't trapped, if he didn't feel himself start to vanish when he got too far away, he could just go somewhere else and pretend nothing was happening. He'd failed and died, he just wished that had been the end of it.

He could try to leave, he knew. It was two city blocks away from Klaus before he started to disappear. Maybe if he just kept walking, he'd vanish completely. Maybe he'd fade away, and this would be over. But he couldn't give up completely, not yet. Maybe he was scared. He had no idea what would happen if he was too far for Klaus' powers to keep him there. He could be gone forever, or maybe he'd just be out of sight, maybe he'd be drifting and even more helpless, or maybe he'd be gone for good. Maybe he just wouldn't be here.

He'd try, eventually. When he was sure there was no hope to stop the apocalypse, when he could take that risk and see what would happen if he left Klaus' side. But for now, he had to force that thought to the back of his mind with the rest of his emotions and panic, and try to logic another plan out of this shithole of a situation.

He glanced down at Ben, sitting on the sidewalk below. Ben was annoyed with him. For keeping secrets, for putting Klaus in danger, and now for this drug thing. He knew he'd have to spill his guts eventually, but that could come after a new plan had developed. 

"Hey Ben?" Five called down to him. Ben looked up, leaning way back to see him. "What are the chances I could talk Klaus through kidnapping and extorting a MeriTech employee?"

Ben looked like he was considering it. "Probably about… 15%?"

"That's higher than I expected. 15% chance?"

"15% chance he'll do it, not 15% chance it'll succeed. Probably a 0.15% it won't be a disaster."

Five nodded. "That's more what I was expecting."

"We're not torturing a random guy, Five."

Five just shrugged, and went back to watching the dark, empty street.

  
  


"You're the one who came in here, bleeding all over, and refused to tell me what's going on!" Luther shouted.

"Oh yeah, like it's any of your business! I was bleeding out and your first instinct was to make me explain every detail of my day so you could pretend what I do is just another thing for you to control!" Diego spat.

Allison put her head in her hands. A headache was starting to beat a tattoo on the inside of her skull and she'd just about had it with this entire situation. It had been about two hours since Diego had finally shouted, "You want to know what's going on? Me too! Ask Klaus, since he seems to be the only one with a clue!", which led to the realization that Klaus was no longer in the infirmary. Which then led into more arguing and a search of the academy as they blamed each other for Klaus' sneaking off while they were busy fighting.

This was going nowhere. Klaus would probably wander back sometime in the night, or maybe he wouldn't and he would go back to whatever it was he'd been doing since he left home, Allison didn't care right now. He wasn't in the academy and yelling and flinging open doors wasn't going to make him run back into the open arms of the police.

Speaking of the police, Detective Patch had also had enough of this. After they realized Klaus was gone, she had called in to her cop friends to keep an eye out for him, told Diego with no room for argument to stay put and not go out looking for him, then vanished into one of the guest bedrooms. Allison had half a mind to go see if she was still awake, if only to get away from this search that was driving her mad.

Actually, she was going to do that. Turning on her heel, she left Luther and Diego to their shouting match/ third scan of their childhood bedrooms and made her way to the guest bedroom. It was closer to the Infirmary and far enough from the commotion that she couldn’t hear exactly what words were being said but the telltale noises of a Luther-Diego-argument could still be heard in the distance. She held her hand up to knock as she reached the door to the room Patch had claimed, then stopped and listened for a second. There was a quiet voice on the other side, not the professional tones of talking into the radio but instead the fond tones of someone speaking to a cute animal. Okay, so she wasn't waking her up or interrupting something. She knocked three times. "Detective Patch?"

There was some footsteps, and some very excited scratching noises, and then the door opened. Patch stuck her head out, but kept her body positioned in the doorway to stop the very excited dog from jumping out to greet Allison himself. Patch smiled in a friendly but unfamiliar manner upon seeing who was there. "Allison, right? Can I help you?"

"I just got so tired of the measuring contest," she shrugged, jerking her thumb over her shoulder to indicate the boys. "Want to talk? If I'm not keeping you from sleep, of course."

"No, of course, I couldn't sleep anyway." Patch pushed the door the rest of the way open, letting Allison slip inside. The guest bedroom was nice, if bland and undecorated. They never had guests, and in fact she was sure their father only had guest bedrooms because he just had too many rooms to know what to do with. Bedrooms upon bedrooms but only seven kids to house, and you could only stuff so many random trophies and taxidermy creatures into the unused rooms that didn't serve any purpose.

Patch was still in the same clothes she was wearing earlier, minus the jacket with some blood on it. Maybe Allison should offer her some of her old pajamas, since the detective was going to be staying here tonight. There was probably something in her old wardrobe that would fit her.

The dog excitedly jumped over to Allison, claws scratching on the wood floor. Patch had been keeping an eye on it, since Klaus had left it here and they didn't really know whose dog it was. They had let it run around in the courtyard earlier, but now it was happy to just wander around near Patch. Allison patted the dog on the head and, not for the first time tonight, wondered what in the world had happened today.

"I'm sorry about them," she said, "Luther and Diego. They're always like this."

Patch nodded. "I kinda got that. Diego's complained enough about Luther over the years, I knew this wasn't going to be pretty."

Allison sat in a soft armchair in the corner of the room, and the dog followed her, laying his head in her lap. Patch closed the door and sat on the edge of the guest bed. "Years? How long have you known Diego, exactly?" Allison asked.

"Since police academy," Patch explained. "Trained together. He had absolutely no idea what he was doing." She smiled fondly.

Allison giggled. "Sounds right. I haven't really talked to him since… well, since I left home. Most of us didn't keep in touch, really. But I heard he didn't do well in the police academy."

Patch shook her head. "He was great, sometimes. He had heart, and fighting skills, and was good in high stress situations, but he wasn't great in a lot of ways too. He isn't suited to be a cop."

In the distance, they heard something smash and Diego's voice shouting in anger. Allison raised and eyebrow. "Was it something to do with being stubborn hardhead who needs to be in charge?"

Patch laughed. "Have you met a cop? That's the perfect personality. The more testosterone blocking his judgement the better." They both laughed a little at that. The dog raised his floppy ears at the distant sounds of stomping. It sounded like they might have finally decided to search separately, or maybe they gave up and went to their rooms to pout. 

When the laughter died and they listened to the silence for a few moments, Patch spoke again. "You can't be a cop if you hate authority. He thinks he knows better than everyone else. And I know always going by the book can be frustrating, but making your own calls just gets people hurt."

"That makes sense," Allison nodded.

"He doesn't get people, I think. He's… judgemental. Can't see things from the other point of view. He'd be a disaster in a hostage situation, I can't even imagine." Patch shook her head wistfully. "But there's a reason behind everything someone does, you know? To be a good cop, you have to realize everyone, criminal and victim, is a person, a person who's going to act like a person. Whatever someone does, it makes sense to them. Their experiences, what they've learned, what situation they're in, it's all something you need to realize is different for everyone and adds up to what they're doing now. Everyone’s just trying to do what makes sense to them as the right thing. I think that's why he has such a hard time understanding." Patch gave Allison a significant look.

Was this advice? Allison glanced at the wall, in the direction of where her two brothers had just been fighting. Understanding. If there was one issue this family had above all others, it was probably that they never took the time to understand each other. Maybe they wouldn't fight so much if they could just see things from everyone else's point of view, what made them say the things they say and do the things they do. 

Her mind flashed back to Vanya. The argument they'd had earlier. She had only wanted to help, hadn't she? She didn't understand what Allison was going through, but she tried to help, and Allison had just snapped at her. Had she ever in her life tried to understand Vanya?

"I get what you mean," she sighed, when she realized she'd been quiet for far too long. Patch nodded and leaned back against the wall. “I think a lot of us have that problem.”

Suddenly, the radio that Patch had set on the bedside table crackled to life. “Detective Patch?”

Patch bolted across the bed, diving for the radio. “Yeah?” she responded, holding the radio up to her mouth.

“I think I found your guy. Hand tattoos,” the voice on the other side said.

“Where?” she demanded.

“Found him breaking and entering in a lab- MeriTech. I'm taking him down to the station.”

Patch rolled out of the bed, looking around wildly for her shoes. The dog jumped at the excitement, and Alison patted his head to stop him from bothering the detective. Actually, she should probably stop bothering the detective too. She stood, keeping a hold of the dog’s collar, and slipped out of the room to leave Patch to it.

Detective Patch seemed very wise and capable. She felt oddly proud of Diego for finding her. Patch would bring Klaus home and they could all talk this over- together. Speaking of, Allison would have to call Vanya and tell her that Klaus was here, as soon as he was back. That was how that argument had started, Vanya was here looking for him. What in the world was going on, that had the whole family chasing around after Klaus, Diego with a bullet in his shoulder, and a detective sleeping over? 

The worst thing about this whole situation, Allison thought as she instinctively began walking to the attic room where she went to smoke, was that if any of them would communicate, they would all know exactly what was going on. But none of the siblings trusted each other as far as Vanya could throw them. She just wished she could understand.

“Miss Allison?”

Allison jolted when Pogo caught up to her on the staircase. “Oh. Pogo? Sorry, I was kind of, lost in thought.”

He smiled. “I’m not surprised. You look upset.”

She laughed humorlessly. “What gave it away?”

“A lot has happened, Miss Allison.”

She sighed. “Yeah, a lot has happened today. Thinking about Dad, and Luther, and Vanya, and everyone. I just wish we could all… trust each other a bit more. Talk. We used to talk a lot.”

Pogo nodded in understanding. “Miss Allison, I have something to show you that I think will cheer you up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and then pogo goes on to show allison the tapes and the dang show's timeline takes over again
> 
> sorry for the short chapter! i had a bit of writer's block while dealing with the stress of moving, i have moved but the stress is not gone yet! also i kinda wanted to show the pov of someone other than klaus and five, since this has deviated from the show's timeline enough. also i love patch  
> i hope this chapter isn't a mess
> 
> find me on unluckyrose.tumblr.com


	9. Nefarious Dognapping With Good Intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> klaus has a bright future in the dog collecting business

It was after noon the next day that Klaus finally woke up, familiar headache greeting him. He seemed to be on a bench, though he didn't know where from the quick look he got before groaning and closing his eyes again. Why was the sun always there? That shit hurt.

"Sleeping beauty?" Ben's voice said, hovering somewhere to his left. "Wakey wakey. We gotta talk."

Klaus groaned again and covered his eyes with his hand. "Nooooo talk, it's early."

"It's, like, 2 pm," Five said, because of course he was there, he only existed to be a smartass and cause Klaus pain.

“Five has a plan, you need to tell him you won’t go along with it.” Ben said.

“Do you have a better idea?” Five snapped. 

Klaus groaned again, accepting that his wonderful nap time was over, and sat up. The bench he was on was the kind that didn't have a back, and Ben and Five were standing on either side, glaring at each other over him. "...I missed something," he said, pointing out the obvious. "What's causing the mood, guys?"

Ben was glaring down at Five, but tore his eyes away to glare at Klaus instead. What, was he still mad about him run off on a drug binge? No, he did that all the time, that couldn't be it. Was he still mad at Five for yesterday?

"The eye is the only lead we have, and breaking in was useless," Five explained, "The only option we have is to ask someone involved in the scam for a book on what they've sold and who they've actually sold it to."

"Sounds great, let's just do that then," Klaus stood up and stretched. "Riiight after the sun stops stabbing me in the brain."

"Except he wants us to kidnap and interrogate the guy." Ben said.

Oh, he understood. "What, you wanna torture the guy?" Klaus asked. "I thought we were trying  _ not _ to get me arrested."

"What if he doesn't even know where the eye is?" Ben glared at Five again. "You yourself said the eye was probably a dead end, they might not even keep records of who actually has the prosthetics."

Five pinched the bridge of his nose. "But he might. It's the only option left to us."

"And you want to kidnap and torture someone on a maybe?" Ben shouted. 

"The world is at stake, why can't you get that?" Five gestured with frustration. "He not even an innocent! He's running a scam! We've done worse to bank robbers and petty thieves!"

"Yeah, when we were kids and we had to!" Ben snapped. "We don't do this shit anymore! We don't have to! Dad's gone!"

"This isn't about Dad, it's about doing what we can to make sure everyone else who managed to stick to the mortal coil gets to survive longer than we did!"

"We're not doing it, we don't do things like that. Breaking and entering is one thing, torture is another."

"Well you know what, Ben?" Five snapped. Suddenly the ghost's attention was completely focused on Klaus. " _ You're _ not doing anything. Klaus is."

Klaus's head throbbed. "Give me a second, will ya? Stop with the screaming." He was faced with a choice here, wasn't he? Honestly, he didn't exactly see what had Ben so upset. It wasn't like Ben hadn't done much worse to help stop crimes. Ben hadn't ever liked Dad using him as a weapon, though. None of them did. 

But this wasn't Dad making them do something. Though it did feel uncomfortably similar.

He wanted this apocalypse stuff over with. Klaus shrugged. "I'm up for it."

Ben stepped back and leveled Klaus with a disappointed look. "Seriously?"

"Seriously!" Klaus shrugged. "Torture isn't necessary, right? Like, we can persuade him without killing him or something. Like, it's concerning Five's mind jumped to that don't get me wrong, but like, I could just blackmail him or smash something. Let's try it."

Klaus pushed himself off the bench and started walking in a random direction. That statement felt like it needed to be punctuated with a good walk off. It was only after he took a few steps that he realized he had no idea where he was, and thus no idea where he was going.

Ben appeared right in front of him, and he instinctively stopped, even though he could walk through him.  “Klaus! You’re going the wrong way, and I need to talk to you.” 

“I’m sure you do,” Klaus spun on his heel, scanning his surroundings. It was a small park with a path through it, and they were the only ones there. It looked like if he followed the path, he’d end up back on the road, where he saw a street sign. He could figure out where he was from there. He started heading in that direction, and Ben kept in step with him. Ahead, Five was already examining the street sign and out of earshot.

“What’s up, Benji boy?” Klaus asked. “I’m not waterboarding anyone, I promise, man.”

“I don’t think we should listen to Five if he’s not even being truthful with us,”

“He was truthful with us, from the beginning,” Klaus pointed out, “You thought he was crazy.”

“Well, I-” Ben gritted his teeth. “You know what I mean. He still hasn’t explained what’s going on with those gunmen that tried to kill you. I don’t want to go hurting people on Five’s word if he won’t even tell us the danger we’re putting you in for it. He’s leading you down a fucked up a path, Klaus.”

Klaus threw his head back and laughed. “I went down a fucked up path a loooooong time ago, buddy. I don’t think I ever got off the fucked up path. No, my whole life is a fucked up highway, and it’s a highway to hell, and there are no exits or rest stops on this train.”

Ben frowned harder and looked like he was having trouble parsing that confusing and inconsistent metaphor. “I just don’t trust him right now, Klaus,” he said, finally.

Klaus frowned at that. “He’s our brother, man. Didn’t you say he needed help?”

Ben’s eyes drifted to where Five was standing ahead of them. “He is- he does. I just don’t think he’s got  _ your  _ needs in mind.”

“Aw, you’re so concerned for me,” Klaus put his hands together and grinned. “You don’t want me to throw away my life! How sweet. My adorable little shoulder angel!”

“I’d wish you dead, but I think I’d still be stuck with you forever, somehow,” Ben sighed.

  
  


Klaus really thought this situation wasn't going to be so bad. Ben was overreacting because he was upset about Five being a suspicious fuck, Klaus had done way more questionable things than just scaring the crap out of a guy for answers. Besides, it was something Klaus could do. It was something Five asked of him because he could do it and they needed to if they wanted to stop the apocalypse. He could do this.

They had followed a man from MeriTech, someone they were sure was a boss of some sort, and waited for an opportunity to hop out and demand information. There hadn't really been a great moment to confront him, especially because he had gotten distracted bantering with his ghosts and lost track of the guy for a good half an hour. By the time they found him again, Klaus had given up waiting for him to go somewhere alone and decided to just walk up to him and demand a chat. The guy was walking a tiny dog and barely glanced at Klaus as he walked up, stepping out of the way to let him by. Instead of walking by, Klaus stepped in front of the guy and held up his hand to stop him.

"Heeey," Klaus said, only realizing after he opened his mouth that he really had no plan that didn't end badly. The guy jerked his head up in surprise and stopped walking. 

"Hello?" the guy asked.

Five and Ben stood behind Klaus like invisible bouncers. He resisted the urge to glance back at them for any ideas. "You work at MeriTech, don't you?" Klaus asked. "I bet you're the most important guy there! Glorious work, designing and producing prosthetics, helping people missing arms and shit. A hero, really."

The man stepped back. He frowned, furrowed his brow, opened his mouth, then closed it again like he wasn’t even sure how to respond. Klaus got that a lot. “How did you know that?” he asked, eventually.

“A little bird told me,” Klaus waved a hand dismissively. “But you know who you could be helping right now? Me! I could really use your expertise in… knowing, stuff, about MeriTech. Let’s have a chat.”

The man glanced around the street. It wasn’t crowded, but there were still a few witnesses going about their business. He clutched the leash of his dog a little tighter. The dog itself had sat down, tail wagging cheerfully and staring up at Ben, who was ignoring it in favor of standing by Klaus’s shoulder like a judgmental angel.

“Okay? I don’t know what this is about, but…” he stepped back again. “What… what do you need?”

“I need to know who might have gotten a certain prosthetic eye?” Klaus said, as innocently as he could manage.

“..Uh-huh. I can’t tell you who has our prosthetics, there’s a confidentiality thing,” the man explained. He tugged on the leash and made to step around Klaus and continue his walk, but Klaus hopped in the way.

“Cool, that’s nice and all, I know, but we think whoever has this eye might be… a bad guy,” Klaus finished, lamely. He probably should have thought of a cover story ahead of time. “And we need to know who has it, who really has it, not what insurance company you tricked into paying for it.”

The man stopped dead and glared at Klaus. His body language switched from scared to hostile. “I don’t know what you mean by that. You’re not police, and you don’t have a warrant. Leave me alone.” He pushed past Klaus, unknowingly walking directly through Five.

“Fuck, no wait,” Klaus held up a hand to stop him, but the guy wasn’t listening. The dog, an absolutely tiny thing, trotted after without a care, walking around Five instead of through him. 

Klaus didn’t make good decisions most of the time, but to his credit he knew exactly how stupid this was the milisecond he decided to do it. He ran to catch up with the man, who hadn’t gone more than a few feet. As soon as he was within grabbing distance, he swooped down, wrapped an arm around the dog, and kept running.

“Hey!” the man yelled, as Klaus jerked the leash out of his hand and made off with the dog. “No! Help!”

Without stopping, Klaus slid into the nearest alley. The man ran after him, yelling all the way, but he had a head start. 

“Klaus, what the fuck are you doing?” Ben asked, running alongside him.

Klaus laughed, a little hysterically. “I don’t have a fucking clue!” He held the dog under his arm and patted his pockets with his free hand. It looked like the alley just lead back out onto another street, so when he reached the halfway point where they would be the most hidden from both sides, he skidded to a stop. The man was just a few seconds behind him, but luckily the second pocket Klaus checked had what he was looking for.

Klaus shoved the man against the wall as soon as he was in arm’s length, pulling a knife from his pocket. “Woo!” he said. “That was unexpected, huh? Some chat. Nice how we don’t have witnesses, now.”

The man held up his hands in a peace gesture. “Okay, calm down. Don’t hurt my dog.”

“What?” Klaus looked down at the dog, which was grinning up at him stupidly. It didn’t seem all that bothered to be held in a football carry by a stranger. “No? I’m not gonna hurt the dog, who do you take me for?”

“Hold the knife to his throat, moron,” Five said. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall next to the man. “Knives are much more persuasive if they’re incredibly close to an artery.”

“I mean, that seems like a little much,” Klaus replied. “He knows I’m serious about chatting, already.”

“Who are you talking to?” The man asked nervously, pressing himself into the wall.

“I’m the one with questions, man,” Klaus pointed the knife at him. “So, let’s clear up the situation a bit. Pool our information. We know about your insurance scam, so that made it a little tough to find who we’re looking for.”

“Is this blackmail?” the man asked.

Klaus shrugged. “I just need to know if you have records of who actually bought your glass eyes, and also I need you to give me those records, if they exist. I’m told this is really important.”

The man’s mouth opens and closes as he tries to decide how to respond. 

“He’s trying to decide if you’re crazy or mafia, because you keep saying ‘we’,” Five said. “That’s actually good, it’s unsettling him. You should shove him again, don’t let him go silent for long.”

Klaus did shove the man. “Just said it was important, man, hurry up!”

“He doesn’t need  _ pointers _ , Five,” Ben scolded. Both ignored him.

“I… they’re in my lab,” the guy said, quickly. “Locked in my office.”

“Will you be able to figure it out from that?” Klaus asked, glancing over at Five.

Five nodded. “Yes, I remember enough of the serial number. Get him to take us there.”

“Figure what out?” the man asked.

“Doesn’t matter! Let’s go, we have some records to go over.” Klaus backed up and lowered his knife hand, letting the man step away from the wall.

“Wait, keep the knife on him-” Five said quickly, but it was too late. The man dived for Klaus’s other arm, grabbing at his dog. On instinct, Klaus pulled back, hugging the dog close to his body, and kicked out at the man. He fell to the ground hard, and Klaus planted a foot on his chest, pointing the knife back at him. 

“Come oooon, I thought we had an agreement!” Klaus gestured with the knife. “Don’t do that, you can have this good boy back when you give me what I want!” 

The dog did whine now, struggling a little in Klaus’s tight hold. By now it could probably tell its master was in danger and was put out. He was lucky this dog was stupid and hadn’t been biting him this entire time, really.

“Klaus!”

“Klaus, what the hell?”

Klaus actually jumped in surprise, dropping the knife and barely managing not to drop the dog. His head jerked up, and his eyes fell on two people he really hadn’t expected to be standing at the end of the alley. Luther came barreling down the alley towards them, like a boulder. Behind him, Allison followed, stopping next to the man and reaching down to help him to his feet.

“What are you doing?” Luther demanded.

“Uh, dognapping?” Klaus said. “No, wait, none of your business. That’s it. Why are you guys here?”

“He stole my dog and held a knife on me, he wanted into my office,” the man explained desperately to Allison, accepting her hand up. 

“Is this a, bad guy?” Luther asked. “Were you fighting him for a reason?”

Klaus sighed. “Yes I had a reason, but he’s just a dumb guy, don’t hurt him.”

“He didn’t hurt anyone, and isn’t going to hurt anyone?” Luther raised his eyebrows.

“No, he’s harmless. Just give him back and let us-”

Luther shoved Klaus’s arm so he could easily snatch the dog from his hold. He dropped the dog into the man’s arms. “You’re free to go, sir.” he said.

“No, he’s not!” Klaus tried to reach out for him, but Luther threw out an arm and blocked his way as the man fled with his dog.

“What is it with you and stealing dogs?” Allison asked. “Actually, scratch that, what the hell is with you, period? Patch has had people looking for you all night! Diego’s been insane! And you’re, what, stabbing people for their dogs?”

“The dog was a prisoner and never in any danger,” Klaus clarified, “And you guys have no idea how much trouble I went through I get that guy! I needed those records!”

“Why?” Allison demanded. “Why would you possibly need to threaten this guy, and his dog? What information do you need? Why were you attacked? Why are you running from Patch? You need to tell us what’s going on with you, Klaus!”

Klaus frowned. Luther was towering over him, and Allison was glaring at him sternly and righteously. He crossed his arms and stepped back. “Actually? I don’t think I do need to do that.” Ben was standing right beside Allison now, looking at him with surprise. Klaus glanced at him, then quickly back at Allison before they noticed. 

“You’re our brother, just trust us,” Allison said, halfway between pleading and a mom-voice.

“You can’t handle this on your own.” Luther added. 

Klaus felt a sting of annoyance. “‘Trust us, because we don’t trust you’? That’s your logic here? I can handle a lot more than you guys think I can, ya know. And, for the record, I’m not on my own, I’m never on my own, that’s at least half of my problems, if not more.”

“Klaus are you sure?” Ben asked. “You could use their help, you know you could.”

“No one seems to trust  _ me _ to help,” Klaus muttered. 

“No, you’re right,” Five said, not really looking at any of them, “It’ll take too much time to explain and they won’t understand. They’ll just get themselves killed, just like the first time.”

Klaus opened his mouth again, but whatever he was going to say, whatever words would come to mind to describe exactly why he didn’t want to explain this to Allison and Luther, disappeared when he registered what Five had said. “Wait,” He turned to face the ghost. “What do you mean, ‘like the first time’?”

Five leveled him with a glare that didn’t seem quite as venomous as usual. “What do you think I mean by that, Klaus?”

“Wha- they died before?!” Klaus blinked. Well, he guessed that made sense. Five did say he was the only one alive in the apocalypse. But he’d never really thought about what became of his siblings. 

Did Five know specifically how they died?

“What are you talking about?” Luther asked. He somehow looked angry, disappointed, and confused all at once, directing those three emotions at Klaus as he stared down at him. 

“Is there someone here, Klaus?” Allison asked, stepping closer and holding out a hand as if to place it on his shoulder. 

“You said you couldn’t talk to ghosts,” Luther said, accusingly.

“What are they saying, is there a ghost telling you to do this?”

Allison looked sympathetic and worried now. Klaus hesitated. Explaining this would be so hard. They wouldn’t believe him at first, even with the gunmen. Then they would believe him, and they would be heartbroken. After all these years he’d have to explain to them all that Five was really dead, but also really still there, and angry and different and possibly traumatized and absolutely obsessed with doing anything to stop this apocalypse without explaining a thing. He tried to ignore the irony that he was using Five withholding information as an excuse for him to keep withholding information. He just remembered Vanya’s reaction when he told her he could see Five, and he wondered how each of the rest of them would react. How long would they accuse him of lying? How long would it take? How big of an argument would it cause? Could he take all that emotion directed at him? Could any of them take it?

It wasn’t like they’d be that helpful anyway. He could do this, probably. It could take days to sort this out, he was just being practical.

“I gotta go save the world,” Klaus jerked a thumb over his shoulder. He spun on his heel and ran down the alley in the opposite direction. He heard Allison call after him, but surprisingly he managed to slip away without Luther grabbing him by the collar.

He got about two blocks away before he slowed down. His entourage of the dead was right behind him when he slowed, so he spun and started walking backwards to address them. “Okay, so, what do ya think? Could we track him down again?”

Five rolled his eyes. “Probably not. And he might call the cops.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe we should go back to staking out the lab?”

Klaus shrugged and looked to Ben. Ben had his arms crossed and was staring Klaus down with a very specific mixture of disappointment, concern, and annoyance. Klaus was pretty used to that look from Ben, but it seemed to have more power behind it than usual. Klaus smiled lazily, ignoring the look, and asked, “What do you think, casper?”

Ben glanced between him and Five, who was also giving him a look now. “I think Five’s shitty mindset is contagious.” Then he vanished.

Klaus shrugged at Five. “I hate when he does that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ben is getting very, very grumpy with these two morons
> 
> i'm glad i'm finally getting to the part of the story where the rest of the family are realizing something's up with klaus. he deserves to have his family actually worry about him.  
> next chapter will be sooner, and will have more of my favorite ladies.  
> anyway, i'm incredibly tired and falling asleep writing this. love you all, thank you, find me at unluckyrose.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at unluckyrose.tumblr.com


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